


Hand in Unlovable Hand

by testosterdile



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Content Warnings at the Start of Every Chapter, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scenes, No Sexual Content, Pre-Canon, anime compliant, generous interpretations of canon concepts and events, light cursing, pre-canon to end of brew, the inherent intimacy of comparing hand sizes, you ever think about hand symbolism in soul eater and go crazy stupid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26920210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/testosterdile/pseuds/testosterdile
Summary: She hated her hands. Their bruteness overcompensated for her inexperience, palm and stubby fingers unmarred by the tribulations of life. It didn’t matter how tight or how long they could hold on when what mattered most slipped between them like grains of desert sand.He hated his hands. When they made music, it was tinged with a darkness that furrowed judges’ brows and shook parents’ heads. When his spindly fingers danced along the keys, they reminded him of a dying spider’s legs.His spider fingers swallowed her knuckles whole and she gripped him tight enough to leave indentions on his skin.
Relationships: Maka Albarn & Soul Eater Evans, Maka Albarn/Soul Eater Evans, Soul Eater Evans & Wes Evans
Comments: 47
Kudos: 98





	1. Hand in Unlovable Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This 5 chapter work is planned to update every Friday or other Friday. There is NO sexual content. Content warnings for each chapter are in the chapter summary (brief=less than 3 consecutive lines; referenced/implied=events happen offscreen or are implied to have happened; depiction=events happen on screen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Until you gain the ability to see souls, focus on the feel of their palm, the cut of their nails, the length of their fingers, the hair on their knuckles._ She guided Maka’s fingertip through each part of her own hand as she spoke, unaware that her daughter was immortalizing every hill and valley of scar tissue and chipped keratin.
> 
> Content Warnings: Brief but reccuring non-graphic references to child abuse/neglect (Soul’s parents and Spirit Albarn), Brief reference to alcohol use and adultery (Spirit Albarn) Brief depiction of abandonment (Maka’s mother)

Soul was born with the hands of a pianist.

At least, that’s what his mother said when he was six, gripping his wrists _just_ a bit too tightly when lifting them to her critical eyes. His fingers were long and thin, unproportional to the rest of his stout palms and body. They bent back painfully when his brother threw the basketball too hard and slipped when he would try to button his dress shirt.

“You’ll grow into them,” promised Wes, rubbing them gently after prying them out from the valves of his aunt’s flute for the third time. Wes’ palms were soft but his fingertips were surprisingly rough, calloused and abused from years of pressing nylon strings against polished wood. 

Unbeknownst to them, ivory keys would never leave a single blemish on Soul’s skin.

Wes was wrong, of course. Despite the infinite wisdom that came with the title of older sibling, he couldn’t predict the future. Unlike his teeth, which went from way too big for his mouth to just too big, Soul never grew into his fingers. They only stubbornly elongated as he increased in height, stretching themselves thinner and thinner as if they were trying to escape from his body altogether. In the following years, after innumerable scales, and competitions, and Beethovens, and Chopins, and Liszts, and disapproving glares that preceded the sharp snap of a ruler, Soul prayed nightly that they would do just that; that one day, he would wake up and his fingers would be gone, leaving nothing but bruised knuckles and a defunct family legacy.

When wicked steel accidentally bisected the family Steinway in a cacophony of ivory and wood, Soul trepidly thought that maybe there was a God after all.

* * *

Maka was born with the hands of a fighter. 

Spirit first realized this as he watched his daughter play in the waiting room of Dr. Morales’ Center for Family Therapy, building massive structures of blocks before knocking them down with a chubby fist. Kami glared at him at the resounding noise, as if Maka got her violent tendencies from _him_ , then, sighing at his pathetic shrug, knelt down in an attempt to get Maka to play a quieter game. He watched as his wife took Maka’s small hands in hers, scarred palms gently cupping unblemished ones, and idly wondered what else their daughter had inherited from her mother.

Maka Albarn had a habit of gripping things a little too tightly, as if she had something to prove to the world at the harrowing age of eight. Cups would slip from her grasp, too clenched to have any real traction against her sweaty palms. She struggled to use chopsticks and always got jam on her blouse after squeezing it from between pieces of soft bread. Spirit could tell when she had a bad day at school not because she told him (because of course she had to inherit _that_ from Kami, too), but by the state of her uniform, untucked and wrinkled from hours of twisting and worrying when the teacher wasn’t looking.

Like most children, Maka gained better control of her hands as she got older. She hasn’t spilled a drop of juice since third grade and her blouses came home as spotless as they were when she left. When she signed the enrollment contract to the DWMA, it was with a hand guided by confidence rather than brute strength. However, judging by the wince on Kami’s face as Maka desperately clutched the hand not wrapped around a suitcase handle, it became apparent that she never really grew out of that particular habit, not entirely.

Spirit had to do a lot of extra ironing after that day.

* * *

She hated her hands. Their brutishness overcompensated for her inexperience, palm and stubby fingers unmarred by the tribulations of life. It didn’t matter how tight or how long they could hold on when what mattered most slipped between them like grains of desert sand.

So Maka practiced. She sparred against Black Star with iron instead of wood until her muscles begged her to stop and her tailbone ached from falling one too many times. She swore to herself that when her Mama finally returned, proud and beaming like she did when Maka was young, her hands would have the strength to keep her tethered to her life. But the satin gloves her father forced her to wear and the breaks he forced her to take prevented the beautiful callouses her Mama boasted from ever blossoming on her own palms. At even the slightest hint of a blister, he would smother her in Neosporin and bandages and keep her under house arrest until the skin was smooth once again. Perfectly weak.

If Black Star ever noticed the times when she hit harder and screamed louder, on days after Papa came home late smelling of a noxious cocktail of perfume and cheap liquor, he didn’t comment. If Maka refused to take his hand after collapsing on her knees, he took no offense.

Mama’s voice echoed in a distant memory, as clear as it was the day that she Left: _Nothing you can perceive from soul perception you can’t get from observing a person’s hands. Until you gain the ability to see souls, focus on the feel of their palm, the cut of their nails, the length of their fingers, the hair on their knuckles._ She guided Maka’s fingertip through each part of her own hand as she spoke, unaware that her daughter was immortalizing every hill and valley of scar tissue and chipped keratin.

Maka noticed things, then. Like how Black Star’s textured grip rivaled her own when he crushed her hand as the tattoo artist branded him with his namesake. Or how Lord Death’s cartoonishly massive white gloves were actually an eggshell, a shade darker than the mask he bore. Or how the tan line wrapping around the base of Spirit Albarn’s left ring finger never fully disappeared.

When it was time to find her own weapon partner, Maka hid her unblemished hands in her gloves, grossly aware of the hypocrisy. She couldn’t see souls yet-- only the faintest wisps of auras that looked more like gas clouds than beating souls-- but had mapped out exactly which marks, which callouses and where, conveyed an ambition that rivaled her own.

An hour into the first day of the DWMA Orientation, Maka remained weaponless and unsatisfied. She was about to head home when a peculiar flash of ivory tuft caught her eye.

He introduced himself as Soul Eater, arms somehow burrowing deeper into the pockets of his suit pants as his eyes flickered nervously between the scattered Cheetos on the ground and her pigtails. His answers were as clipped as his tie-- _Yes, the hair is natural. No, these are not contacts. That’s cool, I’m a demon scythe._ Rows of serrated teeth hid behind his mumbled speech, only serving to embolden Maka’s twisted sense of intrigue. After exhausting himself of dialogue, Eater hesitated, as if debating internally, before jerking his head in the universal ‘follow me’ motion. She did so almost too eagerly, curiosity winning over her better judgment.

It was only after Eater’s hands finally unglue themselves from the recesses of his pockets, hovering over the slick surface of the piano, did she discover that his thin hands were as flawless as hers. The realization made her sick to her stomach.

* * *

He hated his hands. When they made music, it was tinged with a darkness that furrowed judges’ brows and shook parents’ heads. When his spindly fingers danced along the keys, they reminded him of a dying spider’s legs. 

Soul dragged the meister (Something Albarn) to the abandoned music room before he could think better of it. His brain caught up to him when they stood in the doorway, grand piano glistening under the setting sun despite the thick layer of dust, and realized that he just trapped himself in a web of his own arrogance. She looked at him with those eyes-- big, green, and _expectant_ \-- and he knew that he was fucked. The only way out was to play and pray that the rumors she will inevitably start dissipate within the first week of class.

He opened the case and sneezed when the dust tickled his nose. The soft laugh from Albarn calmed his nerves despite the rising flush in his face-- better to humiliate himself now before his playing can, he supposed. His fingers itched in anticipation when the familiar keys were finally exposed, black over white and untouched by age.

It scared him how easily he was able to switch from being a weapon to a pianist. His mother’s voice, deceptively calm, chimed in his right ear: _Back straight. Edge of the seat. Eyes forward. Keep your foot over the pedal. And for the love of God, Solomon, don’t ruin this for yourself._ In his left, his grandmother whispered, _I love you._

Soul swallowed dryly. His fingers floated over the keys, practically drooling with anticipation (and sweat-- actually, it was probably all sweat). Robotically, he awkwardly tapped out the first couple measures of Grandma Evans’ favorite jazz standard. A mental image of his grandma cringed, her wrinkles deep rivers on her forehead, and his face twisted to match her expression as the mechanical music continued.

_Come now, my dear Soul. What are you holding back for?_

His ring finger accidentally slipped a note from outside of the key signature, and it felt so _right_ that he didn’t bother to course correct when his other fingers followed suit. Ignoring the phantom pain blooming on his knuckles, he became increasingly bolder with the improvisation until what he was playing was a bastardized version of the main melody. Eventually, it bore no resemblance to the original piece at all, spiraling into an entirely separate, unwritten movement, flash-composed by years of repressed insecurities and frustrations: tempo wild, key signature non-existent, metaphorical ink still wet on the score as they flew from his soul straight to his stupid spider fingers. He poured himself into the music for what felt like hours until the image of his grandmother, beaming as she always did during one of his performances, slowly reigned him back into the main melody.

It wasn’t until the coda did he remember his audience, causing his fingers to falter but not stop. He straightened up subconsciously (not recalling when he hunched over), and prepared for the familiar sting of disappointment as the final chord resonated.

It never came.

* * *

_“This is who I am.”_

Maka couldn’t see souls yet but somehow, standing amidst the dark amalgamated waves of frustration and insecurity and _love_ ( _God, there was so much love_ ), she knew his was beautiful. 

* * *

They cemented their partnership with a handshake. Maka shed her gloves like snakeskin. Soul wrenched his hands from the safety of his pockets.

His spider fingers swallowed her knuckle whole and she gripped tight enough to leave indentions on his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work/Chapter title is from No Children by The Mountain Goats.
> 
> I made a new account to post this because I’m embarrassed about my old writing. Hopefully I didn’t misuse any music terms-- its been almost four years since I last performed anything haha ;;
> 
> The last sentence in this chapter was the first line to be conceived and inspired me to write this whole fic. It, along with a bunch of other lines and HCs, were first written when I was supposed to be taking notes in class.
> 
> Music HCs  
> It’s hard for me to pick a piece for Soul’s introduction. I was toying with the idea of him starting off with something already a bit unhinged like Captain Marvel (Chick Corea) but I think it’d be fitting for him to start with something more melodic considering his trepidation and ties to Grandma Evans. I think a solo version of My Favorite Things would be really sweet as its popular enough for Maka to recognize and would be more dramatic when Soul goes off the fucking rails before slowly returning to ‘these are a few of my favorite things’ haha


	2. Bare Hands Holding Onto Wire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst part was that it was _tight_ ; so tight he swore his flesh was getting squeezed out from underneath the metal surface until nothing remained but an empty steel husk. When she adjusted her grip a centimeter, it felt like he was nine again and Wes was trying to give him a burn by twisting his skin, except instead of his wrist Maka was wringing his entire body and it _hurt_. //
> 
> There was no way he could’ve known that hidden beneath layers of twisted insecurity and anxiety, Soul had the capacity for so much love that it terrified her.
> 
> Content Warnings: Non-graphic depictions of injuries and the treatment of, Brief but reccuring non-graphic references to child abuse (Soul’s parents), Depictions of child neglect (Maka’s parents), Brief depiction of smoking (Spirit Albarn), Brief depiction of classism (Evans’ family), Brief references to alcoholism and adultery (Maka’s parents)

Soul didn’t trust her.

He didn’t trust her to fuel up the gas tank on his motorbike. He didn’t trust her to cook their meals, instead opting to order takeout without even consulting her first. He didn’t trust her to do his laundry, to unpack his boxes, to buy the right brand of pancake mix because _no Maka, the generic brand just tastes different, okay?_ Worst of all, when he wasn’t mouthing off, he would skulk around the shared apartment and brusquely shrug off any attempts at conversation with an apathy that set her entire soul on edge.

When she would confront him, try to find a single reason to believe he’s not just another _boy_ , he would dig those infuriating hands deeper into his pockets and shrug. They’d remain there even after his drawls turned into snarls and shouts that left both their voices raw, and would only come out to slam the door as he stormed out of the apartment.

She hated how little she saw his hands.

When their first attempt at low level resonance left Maka with a nosebleed and Soul prone on the rug with a ferocious migraine, she wasn’t surprised in the slightest. She said nothing, only helped him to his feet and nursed his head with ice, and it wasn’t until Soul made a jab about staining his shirt did she remember her own injury. While his tone was biting, the way he thumbed the blood from above her lip, brows furrowed and touch impossibly soft, almost made it seem like he _cared._

They agreed to give it another two weeks before trying again. Life went on. The initial difficulties of cohabitation ebbed as they slowly got a feel for each other. He learned that she liked to hog the couch in the living room when the reading light was best in the afternoon. She learned that he enjoyed sleeping in and movies where the majority of the budget was spent on fake blood. Slowly, they began to introduce each other into their daily habits: Soul would lazily bask in the sun as she read, tapping away on a video game on the floor. When Maka suggested movie nights, he was all too eager to share his favorite horror flicks and scoff at her period dramas. They still fought, a lot more than she would’ve liked, but if she didn’t know any better she’d say she began to enjoy his company and he hers.

The first time Papa barged into their apartment unannounced, Soul moved faster than she’d ever seen him, crossing the apartment and swinging his still transforming arm at the Death Scythe in mere seconds despite being engrossed in a film prior. Papa deflected it pathetically easily with a blade of his own… and the next attack, and the next. Her partner only stopped after Maka roughly grabbed his shoulder and pulled back _hard_. She hastily explained her relation to him but the damage was already done: for the rest of the surprise visit, Papa sneered at the younger scythe whenever he wasn’t cooing and fussing at Maka, and Soul’s silent, piercing glare never left his form until he finally exited.

When the door shut behind him, the tension she didn’t know she was holding washed away, hollowing her out and leaving nothing but exhaustion and melancholy. Sensing she wasn’t really in the mood to continue their movie, Soul paused the DVD and returned to the couch, unsubtly leaving more than enough room for her to join him— an invitation, wordless but genuine, much like the weapon himself. Maka took the unoccupied cushion gratefully, deciding not to comment on his slight sigh of relief as she did. There was silence as they both settled until Soul nodded, as if to say _I’m listening,_ and a decade’s worth of frustration spilled out of her mouth: she told him about her Mama and Papa’s partnership, her unexpected birth when they were young, the open secret of Death Scythe’s “habits,” the succeeding divorce and Maka getting caught in the middle of all of it. The weapon never interrupted, did nothing but nod in sympathy and avert his gaze when her words caught in her throat and tears pooled in her eyes.

Soul called a locksmith the next morning.

They liked each other well enough, but when their second and third attempts at resonance ended the same way as the first, her confusion quickly melted into frustration. Once she found out the real reason for their failure, her patience dissipated entirely.

Soul was holding back on her. Initially, she thought it was because he didn’t want to hurt her, unsure of the capabilities of his own soul. It would’ve been something akin to _sweet_ if it didn’t end in further staining the carpet with blood and incessant whining (for a “cool guy”, he could be a huge baby when he wanted to). It wasn’t until their fourth attempt that she realized it wasn’t just apprehension she was sensing from him. He was hiding something-- a lot of things, actually-- behind a wall that violently rejected her soul whenever they were on the verge of true resonance. 

When Maka scolded him afterwards, all venom and hurt, he didn’t deny any of it. He did, however, have the decency to look bashful while spitting out half-assed excuses. The meister tried to reign in her frustration; it was most likely being done subconsciously and a full blown argument would be counterproductive to their fruitless cause. Besides, a book to his already aching skull was all it took to get him to promise to open up a bit more.

The real reason why he relented never escaped her: Like Maka, Soul was just too stupidly stubborn to quit. He wanted this to work out just as much as she did.

Every attempt after that got them closer to resonance, though whether it was of his own volition or her own soul bashing into his boundaries, forcibly dismantling them brick by brick, she didn’t know for sure. Each forced wavelength gave her a new bit of information about the weapon: his real name isn’t Eater (no shit), he doesn’t have his driver's license, Wes accidently broke his finger roughhousing when he was 7 and their parents separated them for a month as punishment, he’s never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before, his least favorite musical composer was some guy named Franz Liszt. Maka knew that Soul knew that she knew because he left the apartment immediately after every failed session, never once checking up on her, refusing to give her even a sliver of a chance to inquire about what she had just learned.

They achieved resonance on their seventh attempt, though calling it such would be a _very_ generous statement. Maka only knew they achieved it because the sharp pounding pain at the front of her mind suddenly turned into a dull thrumming one. Judging by the small gasp from Soul next to her, he felt it too. Both of them stayed perfectly still, practically holding their breaths, as if a single twitch would break their fragile connection.

It didn’t feel good, nothing like the way Mama and Papa described how resonance was supposed to feel. It felt as if there was a massive chasm between them and their souls were connected by a single thin rubber band. Every stray thought and emotion sent shockwaves through their link, stretching it painfully taut before settling to wait for the next one. It hurt like hell, but Maka could feel his surprise and she was certain he could feel hers. In the very recesses of her consciousness she could make out the tinkling of a distant piano playing a song, mechanical and perfect sounding.

Their link broke after only a couple seconds, though not as violently as before. They were both a little worse for wear: Maka was struggling to remember how to breathe and Soul looked like he was about to vomit, but the near hysterical laughs that escaped their mouths when their eyes met made the failures and side effects all worthwhile. 

They did it. It was rough, painful and made her soul feel like it was going to be ripped in two, but they _resonated._ Unrefined though it was, Maka hoped that it would be enough to get them through the first week of classes, if not more.

They didn’t even make it past the first day.

* * *

The first time her gloved hands grasped the steel of his weapon form, he panicked.

It wasn’t Maka entering his soul space that scared him. She insisted (demanded) that they practice low level resonance weeks before class started. Soul was excited until he discovered it was really just long hours of sitting face to face getting mentally violated and physically yelled at. He eventually learned how to expose just enough of himself to satisfy her prying soul with breadcrumbs of vulnerability, and they were able to reach a very shaky form of resonance in less than a month of trying (a fact that he was secretly very proud of). Though the intensity of the mental strain was much greater as a weapon, it didn’t feel that much different than their practice sessions in their apartment. 

No, it was the physical aspect he was unprepared for, blindsiding him in ways he never expected. When he was transformed, Soul knew that he was a lethal object made of demon steel and sharp edges. His ‘body’, however, felt like a sick amalgamation of human and weapon, as if crucial organs and nerves were crudely blended and stuffed into a rusty farmer’s scythe. He could feel every brush against his blade and scrape of his base, but instead of being localized to where they occurred, the feeling numbly rippled throughout his entire body (which wasn’t actually his body, but _was)_. When Maka held him, he could feel her contact on flesh, steel, and, most uncomfortably, _soul._

The worst part was that it was _tight;_ so tight he swore his flesh was getting squeezed out from underneath the metal surface until nothing remained but an empty steel husk. When she adjusted her grip a centimeter it felt like he was nine again and Wes was trying to give him a burn by twisting his skin, except instead of his wrist Maka was wringing his entire body and it _hurt._

“Fuck, Maka! Loosen up, will you?” His voice sounded tinny in soul space but he knew she could hear him loud and clear.

“I would if you weren’t so _heavy!_ ” she ground out in between sharp exhales. A jarring jolt of irritation shot from her soul and his instinctually responded in kind.

“And how exactly is that my fault? Maybe if you worked out those scrawny twigs you call arms, you’d be able to lift me more than two inches from the ground.”

Maka retorted sharply, but Soul could only make out the words _lazy_ and _weight_ as the searing pain from her hands made his ears ring and vision white out.

Somewhere in their shared soul space, something elastic snapped.

A sudden spike of energy caused Maka to release Soul as if he were made of fire. He would’ve cried with relief had he not been immediately ejected from his weapon form and sent sprawling across the gymnasium floor. When the metallic scent ebbed from his nose and his skin felt like flesh rather than steel, he opened his mouth to spit further poison, already prepared for another round of Maka’s favorite game of blame. The insults withered behind his teeth the instant he laid eyes on his partner, whose pigtails dangled playfully over the floor as she doubled over in pain. Her arms were outstretched and her palms were turned skywards, creating a sick facsimile of the beggers that lined the outside of Soul’s childhood concert halls.

_Don’t look them in the eye, dear. They got what they deserved._

Her gloves were scorched. They were pockmarked with holes, charred black at the edges and smouldering where the residual heat lingered. Underneath, her shaking palms were starting to color an angry pink and white, the beginnings of a blister germinating within. Without thinking, Soul moved to hold them and inspect the damage. He failed to mask the hurt on his face after Maka violently flinched away.

When the rest of the Crescent Moon class stared as they left for the infirmary, eyes wide and gossip dripping sweet on their tongues, the weapon knew it wasn’t just the physical pain keeping Maka silent. Her eyes, wet with unshed tears, remained fixated on the floor as they made their way through the corridors. When the pair reached the infirmary, Soul was the one to explain the situation to the nurse, taking extra care to omit any details that would further humiliate him or his partner.

The young nurse hummed sagely when the weapon finished. After peeling off the ruins of Maka’s gloves, shooting sympathetic glances at every wince and stifled cry, they reached into a cabinet and procured a roll of gauze. As they wrapped Maka’s hands with a gentleness Soul couldn’t dream of emulating, they began to lecture:

“When a resonance is stable, the weapon should gravitate towards their meister almost weightlessly, regardless of how loose or firm their grasp is. Similarly, the meister should trust their weapon to perform outside of an iron grip: to help carry their literal weight or add extra momentum to attacks.” The nurse paused, looking aimlessly around before Soul passed them the medical tape.

“Thank you. It should be an effortless and painless dance for both parties, each depending on the other to pick up where they left off. If one person is holding back, even just an _itty_ bit--” They gestured to Maka’s hands, now immobilized by a swathe of bandages and adhesive. 

“You guys were lucky your rate of resonance was low enough to keep the damage superficial, but if this continues to persist…” A fwip and a snip filled the silence as they considered their words. “You two are both young adults, so I won’t sugarcoat it: somebody is going to get hurt, _really_ hurt, and the physical damage will be the least of your worries. You might fu- _mess_ each other up so badly that you may not be able to resonate with anybody ever again.”

Soul flinched as if the words struck a physical blow. He rubbed his knuckles as his mother’s voice crowed in his ear, telling him what he already knew:

Maka didn’t trust him.

The nurse patted Maka’s shaking knee before turning to look directly at Soul. “The partner reassignment forms are in the Admin’s office by the lecture hall, room A-08. I know it’s only the first week, but sometimes cutting ties is safer than trying to force something that isn’t there.”

* * *

Neither of them made a sound once they left the infirmary. The ride home was silent, both parties adamantly ignoring the fact that Maka had to wrap her arms around Soul because she couldn’t grab the safety handles on the passenger seat. Instead, Maka studied how his hands clutched the handles of the bike. The grip was loose but confident, the kind that’s exclusively forged by experience, and only tightened when his wrist flicked back a command she could only guess was ‘go’. At red lights, his fingers drummed an invisible melody on the handles that only the owner can hear, causing dust and rubber particles to dance in the air above.

The instant they got inside, Soul made a beeline for his bedroom door. If the slam followed by the unmistakable sound of a lock sliding into a latch didn’t announce his intention, the soft sounds of punk rock wafting through the crack of the door did. Maka, who wasn’t entirely incapacitated, debated between doing the same or doing the responsible thing and ordering dinner.

She instead found herself lying on the sofa, barely comprehending the sitcom that’s been playing in front of her. The meister was near catatonic when Soul suddenly waved his hand in front of her face, eliciting an undignified yelp of surprise. The chuckle that came from his cracked smirk was out of place against his bloodshot eyes and blotchy cheeks.

A quick jerk of the head: a wordless _‘follow me.’_

Maka sat on the edge of the bathtub while Soul sat on the toilet seat, rummaging around the kit the nurse gave him. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t just his face that was uneasy. His hair was mussed as if he’d just woken up and his muscles were so tense she swore she could hear each sinew tearing, a far cry from his default boneless slouch. 

They were halfway through removing the old bandages when it hit her that in their five weeks of partnership, this was only the second time she felt the touch of his hands on hers. She wasn’t sure why the realization left her so disappointed.

Soul’s hands were bigger up close, long fingers wrapping around hers with exceeding ease. They were thin, bordering on frail, though Maka could sense an underlying strength built by years of practice and performance. When he moved to flip her palms upwards he was painstakingly docile, careful to guide her wrists rather than force them like he does with the clutch of his bike. His fingertips ghosted across her blisters with ointment, touch fleeting, as if he would burn her again if he lingered in one place for too long.

While re-bandaging her palms, Soul’s hands were shaky and uncertain, the complete opposite of how they were while driving. He’s never done this before, she suddenly realized, never had a sparring partner or practiced wrapping up his Mama after a particularly rough mission. Soul didn’t reveal anything about his past, but Maka wouldn’t be surprised if the reason why his hands were so smooth was because they were polished against a silver spoon.

Regardless, he treated the task with a seriousness Maka had never seen until now. His tongue stuck out between rows of teeth subconsciously, a flash of pink in between sharp white. The bandages ended up uneven, lumpy on the areas he went over a couple times too many, but they were secure. Maka expected him to sulk out of the bathroom immediately after finishing, locking himself back in his room until she woke him up the next morning. Instead, he apprehensively cupped his hands and rested them underneath hers, palms propping up the backs of her bandaged hands. If he chose to, he could flex his fingers and effortlessly envelope both her hands in his.

Maka thought his hands would be cold; cold like ivory and demon steel, or the shoulder he would give her when she tried to start a conversation. To her surprise, they were _warm_ , almost unpleasantly so even through the bandages, heated by a secret vitality hidden underneath skin and nail. 

“Uh…”

Soul cleared his throat and she looked up to meet his gaze. While she could see him struggling to maintain contact, he kept them with both eyes and hands. When he spoke, his voice was rough with disuse: 

“The nurse said it looks worse than it actually is. It probably isn’t going to even scar.” He hesitated, mindlessly thumbing his handiwork on her hands. Rivers of wrinkles lined his forehead when he frowned.

“They said… they said next time we might not be so lucky.”

Maka was there when the nurse told them this, but hearing it come from Soul’s mouth, in a tone that made it sound like he was already mourning their partnership, made it feel so much more real.

If they remained a pair, the risk of hurting each other would be way too high.

“Maka, I don’t want to…” his voice petered out but the trailing of his eyes to the tile grout finished the sentence for him: _hurt you again_. His hands fell to his sides in resignation and she resisted the urge to grab them back at the sudden chill that washed over hers. Then, barely audible, as if he were afraid of speaking it into existence:

“Do you think we should find different partners?”

It was Maka’s turn to pause. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to?”

_No._

They argued a lot more than they should. He walked around in boxers and always ate the leftovers without asking if she wanted any. He was rude, lazy, and sloppy: a textbook _boy_. But whenever Papa entered the apartment unannounced, he subtly moved to stand in between them while baring his fangs like a guard dog. When her father left her fuming and anxious, he sat her down and listened until she was all out of tears to cry. When she was having a particularly bad day, he let her pick the movie from the RedBox even when it was his turn and bought her favorite candy without needing to ask because he cared enough to remember. He never revealed anything about himself but everything he learned about Maka he kept stored away as if it were the most important thing in the world. His ways of showing it were difficult at times, but he cared about her, and Maka cared about him.

She knew that there was love in his soul, saw it tinged with alluring darkness as it poured out in droves during orientation, and a small secret part of her didn’t want to quit before she was able to coax it out again.

The rational part of her, the one that took the form of her Mama years before she Left, cautioned her against indulging in this selfishness, assured her that the burns on her palms were both a warning and blessing in disguise. In her mind, she led Maka by the hand and showed her a grotesque mosaic of images: the arms of another woman wrapped around her Papa at Maka’s elementary school graduation; empty alcohol bottles that littered the kitchen counter as Mama waited for Spirit to return from his own late night of carousing; packed lunches that decreased in quality and frequency until one day they disappeared entirely; an upturned table and divorce forms mingling with unfinished pre-algebra worksheets on threadbare carpet.

_Papa loves you and Mama more than anything in the entire world!_

There was no way he could’ve known that hidden beneath layers of twisted insecurity and anxiety, Soul had the capacity for so much love that it terrified her.

“I don’t know,” she lied.

She laid in bed that night rubbing the bandages he carefully wrapped, trying to forget the fact that her Mama never had burn scars on her palms.

* * *

_“Mama? What does soul ree-sun-once feel like?”_

_It was a delightfully clear Spring afternoon. Mama and Papa decided to take Maka to the park to celebrate her straight A report card in Mrs. Conner’s class. They all sat on a bench by the lake, Maka in the middle, enjoying the ice-cream they bought from a nearby cart. Her cone cracked where she held it and the already melting chocolate treat ran down her chubby fingers._

_Her Mama considered the question, briefly resting her own cup of ice-cream on her lap. “Well, it’s different for everybody. For me, resonance feels like a warm hug from Papa, or the taste of coffee from our first date, or the sound of the song we danced to at prom. When I resonate with Papa, I feel how much he loves me and he can feel how much I love him, and that makes us stronger.”_

_Her eyes widened. The now forgotten ice-cream dripped pitifully onto her clothes. “Your love gives you superpowers!?”_

_Papa laughed, a loud and shrill noise that caused the ducks to take off into the air. “That’s right, Maka! We’re so strong because your Papa loves you and Mama more than anything in the whole world!”_

_Mama smiled fondly as she used a napkin to wipe some of the ice cream from Maka’s shirt. “When you finally get a partner, your resonance won’t feel the same as mine. It might be based on mutual respect or loyalty instead of love, and it might transform as you both grow as people.” She paused, waiting until she was certain she had Maka’s full attention._

_“But one thing will always be true, Maka: Resonance should always make you feel safe. It should make you feel special, like you and your partner are the only ones in the whole world.”_

_Maka thought for a second, processing the words of her parents. “So if ree-sun-once is a superpower, does that make you a superhero?_

_Impossibly, Papa’s face brightened further. “That’s right!” In a single swift motion he leapt onto the steel bench, causing it to wobble and groan in protest as he brandished his half-eaten creamsicle skyward like a sword. “She’s your Super Mama and I’m your Super Papa, and no kishin stands a chance against the power of our love!”_

_So engrossed in her Papa’s antics, Maka almost missed it when Kami sighed fondly and said, “And no matter who you partner up with or where your powers come from, don’t forget you’ll always be our own precious little Angel.”_

* * *

“Don’t call me that.”

The setting sun that filtered through the window of his room made the Nintendo DS he was playing on his bed flash glare in his eyes. Soul squinted at Maka, who stood near the entrance of his room after stomping in unannounced. In between her index finger and tumb, slightly pink but unwrapped and healed, she held a postcard.

“And why shouldn’t I?”

He really didn’t want to have this conversation, especially not while recovering from the fourth straight day of humiliation in class. He stared at her for another second hoping to convey as such before returning to his game. _Cut the tomatoes!_ the character chimed.

Maka, reigning champion of never knowing when to give up, tried a different approach. “Alright, fine. Who’s Wesley?”

No response. _Mix the ingredients!_

“Sydney is pretty far away, isn’t it? Wonder what he’s doing over there.”

_Fry the dough!_

“Heard its pretty cold this time of year.”

_Beat the egg!_

Patience finally spent, Maka crossed the threshold in three sharp strides and ripped the console from his hands. The losing jingle played followed by _Don’t Worry! Mama will fix it!_

The irritation he was trying to swallow down bubbled back up tenfold. “I was playing that!”

“You can have it back once you stop being a brat and answer my questions.” She unnecessarily held it over her head to emphasize her point. Soul, only an inch shy of Maka’s height, very easily could have gotten up to grab it. He remained in his spot-- he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of riling him up, and getting the DS back won’t get him out of this situation anyhow.

_Don’t worry!_

“It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Wrong answer. “How is it nothing? You heard what the nurse said: we need to start trusting each other, _Evans_.”

This time he wasn’t able to suppress the flinch when his family name shot from her lips.

_Mama will fix it!_

“Calling me that isn’t helping, _Albarn_.” He spat the last word with as much contempt as he could, failing to ignore the sick satisfaction he felt seeing her face contort in anger.

_Don’t worry! Mama wi--_

“What should I call you, then? How am I supposed to trust you if you won’t even tell me your real _name?”_

“You don’t need to know my name to cut monsters in half!” His accent accidentally slipped out whenever he snapped like this, southern drawl coating the vowels on his lips like syrup. She only looked more distressed, crudely reminded that his birthplace was just one of many things she didn’t know about him.

“Cut monsters in half? I can’t even pick you up without first degrees! Why are you so insistent on hiding everything? It doesn’t make you cool, Soul, it just makes you a big _jerk_.”

_—ll fix it!_

“Just because I don’t air around my daddy issues like you do doesn’t mean I’m hiding anything. If you had some self respect, maybe you’d also consider keeping some things to yourself.”

Soul’s eyes widened as the words left his mouth. Maka looked as if he backhanded her with the flat of his scythe and he almost wished he had instead.

That was crossing a line and they both knew it.

_Don’t worr--!_

What followed was the worst argument they’ve ever had. 

Soul felt like his vocal chords were being dragged against the cobblestone path he personally paved towards hell. Maka’s eyes and cheeks were red and flooded with tears, and Soul didn’t need a mirror to know that his were exactly the same.

\-- _ix it!_

Her voice bounced off the walls of the apartment when she raised her voice. Every time it happened, Soul felt like it was going to swallow him whole the way the ocean does the shore, leaving nothing behind besides residue and grit. This time, in the dying light of his bedroom, he’s certain it did; that the white clouding his vision and the air refusing to enter his lungs was because he was finally drowning in the flood of his own consequences.

An invisible pain spread through the top of his hand. This was the first time he realized just how bad he didn’t want to lose this.

_Don’t w--!_

Maka was the one to bring up the topic of partner reassignments this time.

_\--x it!_

The echo of the front door slamming against cracked wood didn’t leave his ears until he was miles away from the driveway.

_Don’t--!_

* * *

_cry, Maka. Mama will fix you right up.”_

_They were at the park again. Mr. Elliot gave Maka an award for reading the most books in class, a blue ribbon pinned to her shirt that boasted ‘I’m a Star Reader!’ Fat droplets of tears barely missed staining it as Kami fussed over her daughter’s knee, skinned raw from a nasty spill on the jungle gym._

_“Spirit, did you bring the first-aid kit?”_

_The man in question, standing a distance away and nursing a half-exhausted cigarette, only cocked his head in confusion._

_“Huh? I thought you brought it._

_Kami’s eyes hardened in response. Maka braced herself for what was coming next, pudgy hands tightening over her ankles hard enough to bruise. Blood continued to run down her knee in rivulets. Overhead, thunder rumbled._

_“When has it ever been my responsibility to do that?”_

_Spirit just shrugged before taking a deep inhale of smoke. “Look, I guess I just forgot it this time. There’s probably a convenience store nearby where we can buy band-aids.”_

_Kami stood from her kneeling position and stomped towards the weapon, leaving Maka cradling her leg on the sidewalk. Maka wiped her eyes and nose on the sleeves of her shirt and tried to will herself to stop: maybe if she did, they would forget that they were mad and buy her ice-cream again like they did all those years ago, back when she was still their little angel._

_Angels didn’t make their parents fight by getting hurt on the playground._

_“That’s not the point, Spirit. You are a father and it's about time you start acting like one. This isn’t like the time you forgot on that mission to Morocco last month.”_

_It was unclear whether it was her proximity or the reminder of his past mistake that turned his nonchalance into irritation. When he spoke, he reminded Maka of a dragon, thick smoke obscuring his face and floating over fire red tufts. “We wouldn’t have needed the first aid kit if you just listened to me in the first place and stayed on ground level.”_

_“Oh, so now you want to start taking initiative in combat all of a sudden? Last time I checked, the meister leads and the weapon follows.”_

_“Not when that meister is a crazy bi--”_

_Their raised voices drowned out the thunder that clapped overhead. Maka instead focused her eyes on the ground, watching the ants in front of her desperately march march march into the cracks of the pavement in an attempt to escape the upcoming storm. A pair of scuffed sneakers, decorated crudely with sharpied on drawings of stars, interrupted the line and squashed the unlucky group that got trapped under its rubber soles. When Maka looked up, the first thing she noticed was bright baby blue contrasting against grey, making it look like the clouds parted and briefly exposed the sunlit sky._

_“What are you doing down there? Don’t you know crying is for babies?”_

* * *

A sweetly singing violin filled the now too-quiet apartment, replacing the remnants of the calamity that happened only hours prior like rain over a fresh warzone. The sound was tinny through her laptop speakers, popping a bit when it reached frequencies too high for it to handle and resonating against her bedroom walls.

Maka didn’t listen to music. She especially didn’t listen to classical music, only using it as background noise because it was supposedly good for studying (a fact that made Soul whine and grind his teeth into stumps). However, when a playlist of live violin performances appeared after she searched ‘Wesley Evans’ on Google, she discovered it had a much wider audience than students pulling all-nighters. While she wasn’t sure of things like techniques or composers, judging by the standing ovations at the end of every piece, it didn’t take an expert to guess that this Wesley guy was good at what he did.

The meister knew that what she was doing was wrong, knew it the moment she hit search while overwhelmed with desire for recrimination. She wasn’t just crossing a line; she was bulldozing it over and spitting on the remains. Maka half-heartedly reasoned that if the bridge between her and Soul was already ash then she at least deserved to know why. Besides, googling the name of his brother seemed only _slightly_ less invasive than googling his own.

At first glance, Wesley appeared to be the spitting image of the weapon, if a bit refined by puberty. In the most recent videos, he looked to be about in his mid-teens, sixteen or seventeen at most. Regardless of the tint of the harsh stage lights, his white hair, tame with product, always framed his face like a halo. When certain recordings zoomed in on his face, blue irises peeked through lidded eyelids and dull teeth through soft lips. The hands that commandeered the violin were smaller than Soul’s, but moved with a grace and efficiency that his never could. Where his brother was rough edges and snarls, Wesley was round and inviting, differences that permeated down to the clothes they wore and the music they played.

If Soul’s music was a violent tempest of emotions, Wesley’s was a spring shower, gently breathing life into every note he played rather than forcibly uprooting them from the instrument. Still, even after every raucous applause and thrown bouquet, Maka finds herself yearning for the familiar dark plinking of a piano.

The previous video ended and the website automatically loaded a new one. On the center of an ornate stage, a pixelated Wesley bowed in front of an orchestra, occupying where the conductor would normally stand. His violin was tucked safely underneath his arm. When he raised it to his chin, Maka could taste the anticipation from every tightened muscle of the performers and audience, and she held her breath in turn. He gave the subtlest of cues before the orchestra leapt into a fast-paced tango, Evans leading the charge with a melody laced with bittersweet vitality. Maka was so engrossed in the performance that she almost didn’t register the soft padding of bare feet crossing the room and stopping beside her desk. The familiar scent of sweat and diesel entered with it, its owner most likely siren-called by the cadence of his craft.

She froze, eyes never leaving the miniature concert hall on the screen. Underneath the table her nails dug into her palms in preparation for another round of hawkish screaming, her heart jackhammering in time with the brisk tempo of the music. The worst part was that they both knew an argument was completely warranted, that this violation of their unspoken rules was enough to finally terminate their already arduous partnership.

The piece continued. Maka startled when Soul hummed a few bars from the piece, obviously familiar with it. From the corner of her eye she can see his long fingers _tap tap tap_ alongside the rhythm section on his leg. Eventually, one of his index fingers left his side and hovered over the laptop screen, pointing at a handsome, dark-skinned man playing what looked like a massive upright violin.

“I caught him and my brother sucking face in our pantry once.”

Her head whipped to look at his when he said this. Though he looked mildly disturbed by the memory, there was a hint of fond amusement in his eyes as he watched the video. When Soul’s gaze wandered from the screen to her, a bony knuckle shot up to hide the loud snort that came from his nose-- she was absolutely slack-jawed, her already large eyes almost swallowing the rest of her face.

His focus went back to the video, apparently not willing to elaborate further, though the ghost of a smile now danced on his lips. In contrast, Maka’s stare never left his face. As the piece was coming to a close, his lips slowly turned downward and his brow wrinkled, mirroring the same look he had before leading her to the music room on orientation day: contemplative and anxious, betraying the heated argument he was having in his own head.

As the applause died down and the next video loaded, Soul spoke, every syllable stilted with uncertainty:

“Our parents are a bit… traditional.” The twisting of his face when he said this revealed more than the actual sentence did. “Ever since Wes was 13, they kept trying to set him up with these super rich girls, daughters of CEOs and whatnot. Real princess type little shits. It took the fifth rejection for Wes to find out it wasn’t just their personalities that turned him off.”

The right side of his lip quirked up in a smirk. Beside them, a violin sang a light and melodic solo.

“After I caught him and that first cellist, we made a deal; wrote up a contract and everything, though I’m still not sure how much legal binding a document penned by a fifteen year old has,” he laughed.

“I would distract our folks so he could sneak out to meet his boyfriend of the month: usually his newest duet partner or the second chair violinist. In return, he would create reasons to get me out of piano practice. It was a mutually beneficial agreement.” Soul suddenly cringed, and Maka thought he was about to stop talking before he groaned, “Even if he had too much fun with his part.”

Unprompted, he began to tell the story of how Wes flooded the bathroom so badly it spilled out the balcony and ruined their mother’s award-winning snapdragons, all so Soul didn’t have to play a Chopin piece he knew he hated. Once that story ended, he went into another, then another, each becoming more animated than the last as his confidence grew. The laptop sat long forgotten, producing a constant stream of music that harmonized pleasantly with the baritone of his voice, almost as if both brothers were in their small apartment reminiscing together in nostalgic duet. While all the stories surrounded Wesley, this was the most Soul had ever shared about himself in their month of being partnered.

Maka drank up every word eagerly, only interrupting to ask for elaboration or comment on their stupidity, the latter usually earning her a barking laugh in agreement. While her prediction about his wealth ended up being correct, she found herself invested in the misadventures of the two Evans and their disgustingly massive estate. He still tip-toed around certain subjects, sometimes leaving holes in his stories that made both the meister and book critic in Maka want to throttle him for answers. For a particular story, one involving something called a Stradivarius, he stopped himself suddenly halfway through, mumbling something about not remembering how it ended and rubbing his thumbs over the ridges of his knuckles until he recalled a different one. She never called him out on it, never once pushed for details about himself or his parents despite how much she wanted to.

After all, Maka knew an olive branch when she saw one.

Soul ran out of words when the moon was high, long after the playlist had already ended. The apartment was suddenly steeped in a suffocating silence as the events of that evening caught up to them like a bad stench. They both felt the change in atmosphere simultaneously. He shuffled his feet awkwardly, opening his mouth to speak before quickly shutting it again, as if he didn’t spend the past hour talking nonstop. Maka silently considered her options before moving to stand in front of where he sat on the edge of her bed, adamantly ignoring the internal voice screaming at her to _stop._

She held out her fist, small, stumpy, and clenched just a bit harder than necessary. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The relief on his face as he bumped his own against hers erased the tension in her body and placated her Mama's voice in her soul.

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t until the next morning did the meister notice an unfamiliar paper bag wilting on her desk. Inside were a new pair of gloves, angelic white and made of heat resistant material. 

* * *

It was slow-going, but they made it work in the end. Maka learned to wait, once forceful words turning into gentle gestures of patience as she helped him gather his bearings, one by one. Soul learned to share, still keeping certain cards close to his chest while fearfully revealing others, opening up enough for Maka to understand his hesitation and separate the jokers from the aces.

They were the last to successfully resonate in their class.

When they finally did, the results were explosive. The walls of the gymnasium shook, and the eyebrows of the meisters in the room shot up to their hairlines as they watched their souls expand. In the quiet of their shared soul space, Maka felt the dependable grip of a ninja’s hand in hers, helping her to her feet and wrapping her wounds when her parents couldn’t; the weight of a brother’s arm over her shoulder as they hid from the family baker, ill-gotten pastries stifling the laughs that threatened to blow their cover; the giddy feeling that boiled and bubbled in one’s chest at just the idea of keeping a secret-- and thought of a single word: Trust. 

Her grip was still firm on his weapon form, but this time it felt closer to the snugness of a tight winter jacket or weighted blanket, protective and welcomingly warm. When he danced across her fingers and palms, loose and free, he felt the rushing of wind in his soul and their bond sing with joy.

When they clasped hands, his metal fingers shielded her flesh ones and she would never let him go when it mattered most.

They were the first weapon/meister pair to successfully return from a mission with a kishin egg under their belt. Maka strode into class, chest puffed and head high, and Soul could feel his soul swell with pride in perfect harmony with hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Bare Hands by PUP.
> 
> You’re really gonna tell me two 12 year olds with baggage are gonna get along right away? Hilarious. It’ll be like watching two babies fight. 
> 
> This is before Medusa infiltrates the DWMA as I didn’t want her to distract from moment. The nurse’s name is Adrian; they probably have a tragic backstory
> 
> Soul is playing Cooking Mama on a pink Nintendo DS. It was a going away gift from Wes
> 
> A Stradivarius is an extremely valuable and rare type of string instrument worth up to 16 million USD, and probably should not be left unsupervised while two children are present.
> 
> Music HCs:  
> I don’t listen to classical at all, especially not orchestral stuff. For Wes’ video, I referenced Katica Illenyi & Budapest Strings’s breath-taking 2016 performance of Libertango, which is the one ‘classical’ piece I know and love.  
> 


	3. Collect Your Scars, Wear Them Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was slipping. Her fingers dug deep into his arms but no matter how hard she clutched the blood kept cascading from his chest, stealing all the red from his dulling irises and staining it onto her undeserving skin. He was slipping away just like her Mama did all those years ago, except unlike her he wasn’t going to be able to come back bearing a smile sharpened by pride and words laced with affection. //
> 
> His speech may be curt, laced with a defensive layer of toothy snarl and sarcasm, but the way his hands danced in tandem with his emotions made the weapon so pathetically transparent that Maka almost felt voyeuristic watching them.
> 
> Content Warnings: Depictions of injuries, scars, and the treatment of (slightly more graphic than previous chapters); Recurring non-graphic references to child abuse/neglect (Maka and Soul’s parents; Medusa), Depictions of hospitals and terminal illness

She looked so much like her mother.

That was the only thought that could form in Dr. Franken Stein’s head before he was attacked from all sides by a group of snot nosed adolescents. It wasn’t an organized attack by any means, which was to be expected from both their remedial status and the files Lord Death sent him days prior. Still, they prevented him from getting a closer observation of his previous weapon’s daughter-- that was, until he incapacitated the Star Clan ninja and the Nakatsukasa weapon. The genuine screams of terror that ripped from their throats almost made Stein feel a little bad.

Almost.

The doctor knew that her mother left shortly before she joined the DWMA, but every inch of Maka’s movement, from the way she planted her feet down to the degree of the arc she swung a scythe, screamed Kami Albarn in a way Maka would never get the chance to understand. That wasn’t even mentioning her partner: Solomon ‘Eater’ Evans, youngest member of the prodigious Evans family, second-rate pianist turned rebel demon scythe to the daughter of the most powerful weapon in the world. Stein would never say it out loud, not when Maka’s relationship to her father was already as tenuous as it was, but Eater’s delinquent slouch and analytical glare reminded Stein of the Death Scythe in his own school days, albeit with a lot less womanizing.

When he used soul perception on the pair to parse our any further similarities, he became distracted by the sudden puzzle their partnership presented.

They shouldn’t have worked. Maka, much like her mother, demanded a lot from people and even more from herself, remorselessly abandoning anybody that slowed her down and bulldozing the ones that stood in her way. Eater shut down completely when pushed too hard like a stubborn pack mule, lackadaisical nature poorly masking the insecurity that bucked anxiously underneath tan skin. There was no way they should’ve been able to collect a single kishin egg, much less 99, yet here they were champing at the bit for a second full course meal. Their partnership, one built atop the burned ruins of generational trauma, was truly an oddity to behold; conveniently placing them right in Stein’s area of expertise.

Most interesting was their resonance. What they lacked in experience they made up for in exceptional stability. Even when they fought amongst themselves (which, judging by his current battle against the pair, was often) their resonance never once dropped, souls subconsciously correcting themselves the instant they threatened to slip even just a fraction. Perhaps if Kami and Spirit had picked up on this skill, Maka would still have a loving nuclear family to return to. Ah, what a shame.

It wasn’t until they performed Witch Hunter that Stein finally clocked how their partnership worked. When Eater received Maka’s soul wavelength, he didn’t just reflect it back at a higher frequency: he accidentally added his own into it, greatly increasing its strength but resulting in a vastly unstable product. In turn, Maka’s soul adjusted itself perfectly to match the new Albarn-Eater amalgamation before sending it back with more material, all so Eater’s can repeat the process ad nauseam. The resulting resonance reached massive levels exceedingly quickly, only possible due to their souls being in tune down to the very millihertz.

In other words, they trusted one another; not only to empower themselves but to also accept their individual quirks and flaws in their entirety. Their partnership was slow going— must’ve been with subconscious parameters as strict as these— but the results were overwhelmingly powerful, allowing Maka to use Witch Hunter three years younger than Kami could.

Soul and Maka didn’t succeed by mere chance-- they were forged by their defining differences and tempered by the ensuing hardship, creating a feedback loop that only served to further increase the depth of their bond to egregious levels. They understood each other on a fundamental level most weapon/meister pairs could never even dream of.

After Eater bodily protected his meister, hackles raised and fangs bared like a cornered animal, Stein made a mental note to keep an eye on those two once his employment officially began at the DWMA.

When reports of the Demon Sword began cropping up startling near where students were being sent on missions, he considered them lucky he did.

* * *

He was slipping. Her fingers dug deep into his arms but no matter how hard she clutched the blood kept cascading from his chest, stealing all the red from his dulling irises and staining it onto her undeserving skin. He was slipping away just like her Mama did all those years ago, except unlike her he wasn’t going to be able to come back bearing a smile sharpened by pride and words laced with affection.

Soul was boneless in her arms. He was mumbling something that Maka couldn’t hear over the desperate beating of his heart (or maybe that was her own, overwhelmingly loud in her ears). Every pained breath he took left his body shuddering and eyes slit in pain. Above them, the Demon Sword tittered nervously, swaying as they recovered from the swing that ripped Soul’s flesh as easily as wrapping paper on Christmas morning.

His grimace deeped whenever he tried to speak, exposing the teeth he once tried so hard to hide. Maka shakily discarded her gloves (the ones that he bought her, now ruined with crimson and black) and tried to smooth the agony from his lips with her fingertips. It was a simple brushing motion, one that silently pleaded him to stop wasting his words on her and to _rest_. To her disappointment, Maka’s ghosting touch only made him more agitated, and he doubled his efforts in begging her between heaving breaths to _leave him, get out of here, go._

His face was so cold, untouched by the warmth seeping from the cavity in his torso. It was as if he were still made of demon steel rather than skin (and how desperately she wished that were true, that the sword would’ve ricocheted harmlessly instead of rend the too, too solid flesh). From within their soul space, she could feel each weak pulse of his soul wavelength struggle to reach her as it drifted farther into the abyss.

The Demon Sword raised their weapon, and Maka wondered what her blood would look like mixed with his.

;

Despite never being a frequent user of them, Soul always hated the infirmary beds. He said that the sheets they provided were too thin and always smelled like the last person that used them regardless of when they were last replaced. He swore that the mattresses were actually slabs of bedrock hauled from the nearby desert and were never big enough to sprawl out comfortably on. Whenever Maka was laid up, he’d spit and snarl at the nurses until they gave her all the extra pillows and blankets he thought she deserved. She would always apologize to them after he left, but the nurses would just shake their head and smile fondly.

_“Your weapon cares a lot about you, you know.”_

It was Maka’s turn to request the extra amenities from the recently hired Dr. Medusa; he wouldn’t be able to, not while kept under by a cocktail of painkillers and anesthesia. When propping his head and draping his body with pillows and thin sheets, she was uncharacteristically gentle, as if the slightest jolt would violently reopen the stitched chasm that now bisected his body. The way his eyelashes fluttered with every rise and fall of his chest reminded Maka of the delicate settling of dust on hardwood.

She never left his side during those first couple days. Sometimes she would do her homework, making notes on the problems she knew Soul would have trouble with when he woke up. Other times she would read: silently first before hesitantly aloud, as if hearing Maka’s bad impression of Long John Silver would cause him to wake up with a laugh and a fond _dork_ escaping from his lips.

Most of the time, she held his hands. They were warm, though whether it was from his slowly returning vitality or the transfer of heat from her own, she wasn’t entirely sure.

Soul’s palms were sizable, startling smooth except where they were lined with creases predefined by life. His fingers shot from them like bamboo shoots and at the end of every one was a nail fastidiously cut short, some slightly red where the remnants of a hangnail peeled. White hair dusted his ridged knuckles like freshly fallen snow, sparse and soft to the touch. He had the hands of an artist, one born to weave music out of thin air with gentle strokes and reaching fingers. They were out of place against her stout own, which only knew how to tear and maim in an insatiable claw for power. Her hands might not be able to create like his can, but they can fight. Protect. She ran her fingers through his, mapping them in her mind as a silent promise to guard every single inch of thin bone and tan skin.

She would do better. She had to if she wanted to keep him safe, to protect the soul that bore its fangs for her for so long that she forgot how to fend for herself.

When he woke up from nightmares only he could see, his hands drenched hers with sweat and clung like they were the only things keeping him moored to the land of the living. He wasn’t able to register the strength in which she squeezed back, so tight it was as if she were challenging Death himself to try and steal him away from her grasp.

* * *

_It was dark and he was drowning. The only source of light was a miniscule speck lightyears away, lone Polaris in a sky devoid of stars. A new voice in his head, unpleasantly nasal and masculine, taunted him with words from the past as he scrambled for air:_

_It’s unseemly to struggle, Solomon._

_He never learned how to swim. Why would a pianist ever need to risk sullying perfect hands into raisins with chlorine and water? Soul kicked as hard as he could towards the light, trying to emulate Maka’s form from their summer afternoons at the community pool._

_Don’t tell me a cool guy like you is scared of a little water?_

_The thought of his meister strengthened his determination tenfold; he needed to see her, to let her know that he was okay, that it wasn’t her fault he got hurt, that he’d do it again and more in a heartbeat just to keep her safe. He swam until his lungs threatened to burst and his legs burned with the venom of exhaustion. He could feel the warmth of freedom as the light became brighter. After what felt like hours, he finally broke the surface._

_Those spider fingers that he despised so much became talons as he tore open the chest of the one person who understood him most._

* * *

He thought her hands were beautiful. They were strong where his weren’t and handled his weapon form with a power and expertise he witnessed from no other meister in their class. When they wrapped around the handle of his scythe, he felt safe, and, judging by the homely beating of her wavelength in battle, she did too.

Everything changed after their defeat in Italy.

Instead of confidence, Maka’s vice grip was now motivated by something akin to desperation. When she led him around the apartment by the arm, barely faltering as he leaned his weight against her slender frame, her fingers sunk into his skin as if Death would change his mind and whisk him away without a moment’s notice. The next time they resonated, a couple days after Dr. Medusa cleared him from the infirmary, it felt _off._

Her soul was always a bit overwhelming, invasive in the way the July sun was on an emerging sunburn. It was a feeling he had to learn to embrace, but once he did, made his soul yearn for her warm albatross cocoon. Now though, her wavelength _suffocated_ him, newfound overprotectiveness masking layers of guilt and a surprisingly guarded edge. He was ashamed to admit that it scared him-- caused him to instinctively shy away-- and for the first time since the fledgling of their partnership, their resonance slipped. It wasn’t as bad as before, but neither Soul nor Maka could ignore the familiarly uncomfortable tension they got when they bonded souls. They never addressed it, only let it exacerbate until Dr. Stein’s weekend “training” pushed them over the edge.

The demon in his head asked what it was that he so afraid of. Soul told it to fuck off.

When they fought the immortal werewolf, he seared into her palms like they were twelve again, except instead of dropping him Maka invited Soul to brand her through melting cloth and skin. He barely felt the pain of the failed resonance over the horrific feeling of slowly sinking deeper into her palms, dreading the eventual sensation of metal engraving bone. It never came, but the cruel amalgamation of fused cotton fibers and flesh his metal left on her quaking hands hardly made him feel any better.

The flight back to Nevada was quiet, even Black Star seemingly able to read the room for once. Soul tried to ignore the feeling of deja vu as Dr. Medusa cut the remnants of ruined fabric from Maka’s hands, prodding her charred and bleeding palms much too roughly for his liking. He was about to snap after Maka’s fourth choked gasp of pain before the nurse stopped and gave them a diagnosis that made his heart plummet towards the linoleum like a frozen wolfman towards water:

Second-degree burns.

Soul gave his partner _second-degree fucking burns._

The nurse swaddled her hands in bandages with brutal efficiency before dismissing them with aftercare instructions tucked safely in Soul’s back pocket. When Maka gingerly suggested they drop by his favorite sushi place on their walk home, unsubtly brushing her rough bandages along his aching knuckles, he didn’t have the energy to remind her that she hated seafood.

;

After their first Kishin egg left Maka with a deep gash in her thigh and road rash varnishing the length of her arms, Soul learned very quickly the importance of a well stocked first aid kit. During their year and a half long partnership, he had learned to treat a plethora of ailments and injuries ranging from Charley horses to broken ankles, even once holding in his vomit long enough to perform an emergency sewing procedure after a botched mission in the Amazons. It was his duty to protect her and, when he failed, it was his duty to patch her up.

He was never supposed to be the one that gave her those wounds.

They were in the bathroom again, Maka at her usual spot on the edge of the bathtub and Soul on the toilet seat. He pawed through their massive first aid kit, haphazardly decorated with souvenirs and stickers accumulated from their travels. After procuring the burn cream and an alarmingly sparse roll of bandages, he palmed the medical scissors and began to remove Dr. Medusa’s handiwork. Neither of them commented when both their hands began to shake as the old bandages pooled on the tile like coiled snakes.

It was worse than he ever could have imagined. White crusts lined massive blisters that exposed deep inner layers of skin, inflamed and oozing unpleasantly colored pus. Where the raw skin wasn’t damp with fluids it was charred dry and flaking like ash. The injuries spanned from the tips of her fingers to the lower-mid of her palm, deeper at the creases, and Soul almost cried at the realization that her wounds slotted perfectly around the thick cylinder of his scythe’s handle.

Instead, he continued to work on autopilot, treating and rewrapping the bandages gently but mechanically. As he did, he lost himself in the memory of his brother accidentally breaking his left pinkie while they were imitating wrestlers they saw on television. It _hurt,_ but Wes quelled his tears by stating how lucky he was to get out of piano practice for a month, lamenting how much he wished it were him instead. Their parents disagreed; the pain of the injury was nothing compared to the harsh reprimands they gave the brothers or the separation they enforced between them while the bone slowly realigned itself.

“Hey, Soul?”

Maka’s voice pulled him out of his reverie and didn’t continue until he met her gaze. His patient looked at him with those wide eyes, dyed with greengrass and resolution, and Soul was starkly reminded that she, unlike him, was so much more than what her hands could do.

“You know it's not your fault, right?”

It was a question, but the meister didn’t convey it as such. She said it with so much conviction— the same hard tone she got while relaying battle plans and textbook facts— that Soul almost believed her instinctually. He would’ve had it not been for the voices of reason and unreason crooning in his ear in a motherly nasal duet:

_She got hurt because you couldn’t match her, didn’t trust her enough. All you do is push people away, and now you’ve made her as useless as you are._

Soul didn’t speak as he finished up bandaging the last hand. Maka frowned at his silence, almost as if she could hear the jeers in his head. She paused, then hesitantly lifted the hand he wasn’t working on and pressed the backs of her fingers onto his chest, tips gently creasing inward right above his heart. There was no heat escaping through the evenly wrapped bandages, just the calming sensation of gentle, lingering touch. 

The weapon froze at the sudden contact. He hoped she couldn’t feel his scar ache through the suddenly too thin t-shirt Wes gifted him, inappropriately printed with a cartoon cat playing the keyboard. Her hand rested there for a few long seconds, rising and falling with the steady rhythm of his lungs like a boat on undulating water. It suddenly occurred him that she was waiting for a response.

“Yeah, Maka. Of course,” he lied. 

Soul swallowed the bile in his throat as her hand fell back to her side, seemingly satisfied with his answer, and tried not to shudder at the sudden vulnerability that came with the absence of her touch.

Her hands didn’t fully heal until a month later. The blistering half-cylinders that decorated her palms and fingers eventually scabbed into dark red puffy scars, ones that subtly weakened her grip and ached in temperatures below 65 degrees F. It was his mark, a permanent reminder of his inadequacies as both a weapon and partner. Maka assured him that she didn’t mind, that she was actually almost _proud_. She told him that her mother had more scar tissue than skin on her own hands, as if that fact excused him from literally _branding_ her with steel like cattle.

When she thought he wasn’t looking, Maka would self consciously tug the edges of her new gloves further down her wrist, stretching the already thin fabric taut. Soul tried not to resent the cloth that shielded her hands from the threats of the outside world. If they acted as a barricade between him and Maka, well, that just means they were better at doing their job than he was.

* * *

_The Evans manor was silent-- an exceedingly rare state of being considering its usual musically inclined inhabitants. The last noise to be made was the slamming of the back door an hour prior, made by a piano instructor stomping out in an unsatisfied huff. Her student remained on the piano bench, quietly nursing his bruised knuckles and wounded ego alone in the 8,230 square feet estate._

_Solomon’s father was back on tour with the rest of his opera company halfway across the country, belting songs etched into his heart for sold out crowds that included senators and excluded family. Nobody would admit that they preferred it that way, that when the Evans patriarch returned to his abode he would compensate for his absence with a booming voice and commandeering iron first that dwarfed his stage presence._

_His wife was currently accompanying Wesley Evans to Perlman’s National Junior Violinist Competition in the next town over. This was to be his fifth victory within the quarter and would supposedly put him on the radar of some very important conductors and recruiters. Solomon hadn’t seen his brother much since the turn of the new year; as the eldest became swept up in an increasingly furious tempest of competitions, auditions, and influx of parental approval, he had less and less time to entertain the baby sibling unnoticeably trailing behind. The more time apart they spent the more strained their relationship became, fueled by a combination of Solomon’s embitterment and Wesley’s newfound musical responsibility._

_The reason why Solomon wasn’t with them was because he had his own regional competition to practice for-- one that he was irredeemably unprepared for according to his now absent instructor. The dense sheets of music that rested on the stand taunted him, providing instructions written out in measures and ink but not the skill to execute them._

_Normally, when he and his grandmother had the house to themselves, they would forgo evening practices. Sometimes they would order a pizza and rent her favorite classic horror movies from the RedBox across the street, making sure to painstakingly discard all the evidence before the other residents returned. Other times, they would eat nothing but ice cream using the fine China and gossip about Wes’ crush of the month or swap stories about their week (or, in Grandma Evans’ case, the absolutely unhinged events of her youth). When she thought he was old enough, she would sometimes remove the tarp from a garish orange motorcycle in the garage and give him lessons along the estate’s massive looping driveway._

_His favorite activities surrounded the performances they would put on, secret to all except the two musicians and the night staff (who knew to keep quiet at the rare sounds of laughter in the Evans’ household). If her arthritis wasn’t acting up, they would peruse Grandpa Evans’ worn binder of jazz standards and play until the they heard the front gates creak open or the owls harmonize: Soul on the keys, and Grandma Evans wielding drumsticks that were more tape than wood and a shredded practice pad twenty years his senior. It rained rubber and foam debris with every strike._

_(He and Wes gave up on petitioning their parents for a drumkit in the home after the autographed poster of Gene Krupa they gifted their grandmother was found in the trash, unsubtly replaced with a decaying portrait of Sergei Rachmaninoff)._

_The Solomon in the present shook the memories from his head and sighed. Despite the discoloration on the tops of his hands, the pain of punishment and humiliation had subsided enough for him to return to practice long ago. He cursed for allowing himself to get distracted and yearn for something now unattainable._

_It was hard to perform a duet when your partner was laid up in the state hospital, after all._

_He fixed his eyes on the piano as he lifted the cover and prepared to play once more. His distorted reflection stared back, monstrous fangs and scarlet eyes retaining their sharpness even trapped deep within polished black hardwood. As ten perfect little soldiers pranced along ivory, drowning the cavernous room and its lone inhabitant with their tainted music, the little demon named Evans tried his hardest not to feel abandoned._

* * *

Maka never understood Soul’s explanation of being an entity in soul space until the night of DWMA’s anniversary, bleeding out miles underneath the surface of the school from the Demon Sword’s handiwork. 

When she stepped into the quiet of the Black Room, she felt the impact of every heeled footstep, was aware of the unfamiliar inky dress draping her frame and ribbons holding her hair. Yet she also knew that it wasn’t her body, that it lacked her limbs and blood-- skin and bone-- and registered sensations in a realm far beyond matters as trifling as nerves and touch sensors. It was a projection created by the core shared between the physical and metaphysical self, the one thing that made Maka Albarn who she was, flaws and all: her soul.

Contact worked differently in soul space, they both discovered. When Soul danced with her in his soul, one hand laced around her own and the other fluttering against the small of her back, any barriers built between them melted effortlessly at their touch. The warm sensation of body heat wasn’t fueled by mere blood, but by something much more intimate; Maka felt every fierce wave of protective fear diffuse from his skin into hers, and he felt every ounce of fiery faith she held towards him and Crona. As they danced, she worked to carefully counter his pulses of anxiety with ones of calming reassurance until his apprehension bled away into a trepid but steely confidence, placing their souls in perfect sync for the first time since that fateful day in Venice.

Soul had a hard time trusting himself but somehow, despite all the mistakes she’d made over the course of their partnership, that apprehension never once even grazed Maka. When they solidified their pact with the demon, the strength of his resolve almost startled her, directed not only towards her but also his own ability to tether her back to sanity-- to him.

They continued to dance as black, viscous fluid began to pour at their feet, flooding in from between the diagonal cracks of black and red tile. It knocked their already unsteady steps off tempo as they struggled to cut through the thick substance lapping at their ankles-- not that they could hear the music over the sounds of rushing liquid and cackling ogre, anyhow. Their grips on each other never slackened, determination and courage unfaltering even as the blood reached their chests and transformed their waltz to a lethargic underwater shuffle.

Soul, the shorter of the two, was the first to drown. The ink was at his chin when it reached Maka’s shoulders, yet the fearless gaze he wore mirrored the overwhelming bravery humming loudly between their souls.

“See you soon,” he promised, before plunging his head into the darkness. Somehow, while watching the last strands of white hair disappear into tar-like nothingness, Maka had no doubt in her soul that she would.

The last thing she felt before the pool of black engulfed her was the warm, steadfast sensation of a firm oath; the same kind that ensured a reunion before a temporary good-bye, like a dog-eared page in a well-loved novel or a pair of best friends before summer vacation.

;

Despite the blistering desert of their soul space, it was Maka who had to thaw the humanity from the Demon Sword. Her embrace melted away a lifetime of unjust suffering into an ocean that purified their animosity and nourished a fragile bud of friendship.

Crona’s fingers were as long as Soul’s, but they lacked any of the warmth his had _._ When she shook their hand, anchoring her fingers as tight as she dared, Maka realized that her growing collection of scars and calluses was pitiful compared to the other meister’s. Half-healed wounds criss-crossed their palms and fingers, prideless and mangled as if they were once infected and never treated. Unlike hers, they weren’t marks of partnership or growth; they were brands of abuse, quenched in innocent blood and snake venom. It made Maka want to puke, to turn back and shove Stein aside to finish Medusa off herself again and again. It would be a fruitless endeavor, however. 

The battle was over. Medusa was dead.

The Kishin was released.

Life went on.

Shortly after the repairs were finished, Crona was introduced to life at the DWMA. Nobody wanted to admit that it was a rough transition for everybody involved. Maka’s friends saved face, mostly for her sake rather than Crona’s, but she could practically sense lingering hostility from everybody barring her partner. Similarly, Crona held a vast amount of distrust for the DWMA students, unconvinced that they wouldn’t hesitate to revoke any meager amount of goodwill they’ve earned on a whim. 

Still, Maka was relentless in her quest to integrate Crona into her world, inviting them to every gathering no matter how minor. Slowly but surely, as they regained the confidence first lost a lifetime ago, Crona warmed up to her friends and they to them. Apprehension gave way to affection, and while Crona still preferred to tail Maka like a live shadow, they no longer asked permission before commenting on a story or hid rare smiles behind a closed fist.

Surprisingly, it was Black Star who first openly boasted Crona as a friend after Maka. The sudden announcement came after they scored the winning point in their bi-weekly basketball match, earning the ninja a flood of flustered tears and a chorus of cooing laughter. The rest eventually became more open with their affection as well: the Thompson sisters took them to the mall while Kid fought to make their “room” in the dungeon as accommodating (and symmetrical) as it could be. Tsubaki, who already packed lunches for everybody, took the extra time to cook double for Crona in case Ragnarok decided to help himself.

As with everything he did, Soul was a lot more subtle, both in showing his hesitation and his fondness.

Initially, Maka wasn’t entirely sure where he stood with the Demon Sword, the same one that sent him to Death’s door and threatened to do the same with her only a few weeks prior. He was awkward but not impolite, yet chose to keep his distance when all three of them were together. While he was the first to chastise Black Star for his initial insensitive comments, very rarely did he initiate conversation with Crona unless Maka acted as a buffer.

What bothered Maka most was that his hands rarely left his pockets while Crona was around, keeping his shoulders hunched with defensive tension. His tone of voice was softer than usual, but the guarded edge he kept in their presence told Maka all she needed to know:

He didn’t trust them yet. He trusted the meister that trusted Crona, and that would have to be enough for now.

As time passed and Crona further disproved themselves as a threat, Soul’s hands spent less time in his pockets. They defaulted to hover by his sides for a few days before hesitantly introducing themselves to Crona’s in a variety of fist-bumps and high-fives-- nothing like the overwhelming shoulder hugs Black Star gave or Kid’s reassuring handshakes. Crona was shly receptive of his gestures, familiar with the connotations of affection from watching Soul and Maka do the same daily. Nothing else had changed between them. Soul’s touches were as brief and unsure as his attempts at conversation, yet nothing could have soothed Maka’s fears more effectively.

The fact of the matter was that Soul didn’t know just how much he exposed himself without the need for words. His speech may be curt, laced with a defensive layer of toothy snarl and sarcasm, but the way his hands danced in tandem with his emotions made the weapon so pathetically transparent that Maka almost felt voyeuristic watching them.

Whenever he was anxious or impatient, the extra energy always seemed to channel straight to his fingertips, causing them to restlessly tap a noteless melody on the nearest surface-- usually the side of his thigh. They fiddled with his headband whenever he lied, a rare act she only saw when asking about missing snacks or night terrors. Whenever he was startled, his fingers would flex outward slightly, the same way they would before transforming into sharp black and red steel. The movements were subtle, as invisible as they were meaningless to the untrained eye. Even while bored, he made the act of twiddling his thumbs somehow graceful, schooled by a decade of musicianship and discipline.

When it was just the two of them, his hands were more animated. When his favorite band announced they were releasing a new album, they were impossible to follow with how fast they flew around his face and torso, all pretense of coolness shot to hell at the promise of new music. It wasn't just excitement he expressed more openly, however. High-fives and fist bumps turned into reassuring squeezes of shoulders and hands in the sanctity of their privacy-- his silent way of telling her he was still here and making sure she was as well.

Whenever the two argued, Soul's hands would shoot up into the air in exasperation before angrily receding into his pockets, effectively closing himself off from the rest of the world until he felt safe enough to allow himself once more an ounce of vulnerability. She knew that if he ever found out about his tells, about his subconscious cipher that only she held the key to, he would shove his arms as far deep as they would go and keep them there until his dying breath.

Maka hated it the most when he would run his fingers over the length of his knuckles, considered it worse than when he shut himself off entirely. Whenever he did, his unseeing eyes would glaze over and he spoke numbly, as if he couldn’t stand to hear the lilt of his own voice. Lost deep within soul space and memories he refused to share, Soul’s fingertips would continue to traverse bunny hills of bone and thin skin until tumultuous waves of guilt receded into dull anxiety, leaving him hollow and exhausted. When she felt him beginning to slip into this state, Maka would make excuses to distract his hands with hers in a desperate attempt to keep him present, to quell whatever phantom pain that was localized on the tops of his fingers.

Whenever she got hurt, unable to do anything but watch Soul restlessly flutter around like an agitated hummingbird, Maka was worried that he would rub his knuckles raw to the bone.

* * *

He hated the infirmary beds, thought that the mattresses were too hard and always smelled like the last person that used them. The wretched things were undeserving to house his meister healthy, much less when she was _injured_. Whenever he told her as such, she would sigh and call him a drama queen; though by the third day of being immobilized by miles of magical spider-silk, even Soul was impressed by the ferocity in which Maka cursed the inanimate slab of springs.

The late afternoon sun fought admirably to warm the air-conditioned clinic. Empty tupperware scraped clean sat forgotten on the bedside table, mac and cheese residue painting the sides a sickly artificial yellow. She had gotten over arguing about being fed after the first night, though that didn’t stop the pink from dusting both their cheeks every time he dropped in for lunch.

Barring a few exceptions, school policy only allowed infirmary visits during lunch and out-of-class hours. Students still needed to learn after all, with or without their partners. The professors always swore the distraction of isolation would wear off after the first few injuries; Soul thought they were all full of bullshit. More preoccupied with the empty seat to his left than their lectures, he found himself skipping class more often than not whenever she was laid up, hiding out in the desolate music rooms or balconies until he could visit without Maka chewing him out for 'breaking the rules.'

It never got any easier, knowing that she was hurt because of him.

“You’re brooding again.”

She was in the same awkward position she was three days ago, arms rigid by her sides and back ramrod straight against the backboard of the cot. Her strong voice never struggled to compensate for her lack of gestures.

Soul huffed from his seat. “I do not _brood,_ thank you very much.” He removed his hands from his jacket pockets and crossed them in front of his chest to accentuate his point. “It’s called _thinking.”_

“Are you sure? Because I’m pretty sure last time you were caught ‘thinking,’ I was the one that had to bail you and Black Star out of detention with Miss Marie.”

He opened his mouth to say that, _actually, he wasn’t thinking when he decided to trust Black Star’s judgement,_ when the bell interrupted him before he could. Its chime was probably pleasant at one point but was now horribly out-of-tune as it struggled through the ancient overhead speakers. Both of them stayed silent as the mangled song ended, neither of them really wanting to acknowledge their reluctance to seperate.

She was too prideful to admit it, but Soul knew she missed him just as much as he missed her.

“Well,” Soul eventually sighed, “that’s my cue.” He stood and moved to collect the empty containers into his bookbag. “Is there anything you need before I go?” 

She paused to think, humming unmelodically as she did. “My hands _are_ a bit cold.”

He stopped zipping his bag half-way. “Again?” 

“Mhm.” Her eyes were narrowed, floating above a scrunched up nose and pursed lips. The expression only meant one of two things: she was either in _extraordinary_ pain or was lost deep in thought.

After a few more beats of silence, Soul mentally calculated the estimated arrival time of the nearest ambulance before Maka finally spoke:

“Stay here with me?”

Now _that_ he didn’t expect.

Maka _hated_ it when he skipped class, even more so when he was the one responsible for note taking. When he saw no trace of disingenuity in her face, he grinned for the first time in what felt like days.

“Star student Maka Albarn encouraging _me_ to play hooky? What has the world come to?” He dramatically mimed fainting against the medicine counter, breaking character briefly to wince at the medical supplies clattering onto the floor before continuing with more gusto:

“Next you’ll tell me that Stein has given up dissection; or worse, that Death Scythe has finally decided to see the error of his ways and settle down! Oh, say it ain’t so!”

Unable to gesture any other way, Maka rolled her eyes as slow and as far back as she could. Only the soft smile that played on her lips revealed fond amusement rather than actual exasperation. 

“Shut up, it’s not like you wouldn’t have skipped anyway. Now get over here before my fingers fall off from frostbite and you’ll have to find a new partner to tolerate you.”

He laughed at her playfully demanding tone, already moving to resume his post at her side.

_How fickle._

Soul repositioned himself on the edge of the stool, leaning towards the bed where she sat. He waited for Maka’s hum of approval before gently prying one of the hands that lay by her side and enveloping it in both of his, sandwiching it between his larger palms. Her entire hand almost disappeared between his fingers, the only evidence it existed being slivers of pale peeking out between the gaps of tan. They stayed that way for a few beats before Soul repositioned his hands to gently massage hers, kneading his thumbs into the meat of her palms and wrists. She sighed in relief as the warmth and prodding of his hands encouraged the blood flow in hers.

They were small, almost surprisingly so for a girl of her stature. What they lacked in size they made up for tenfold in strength, bulging where he knew trained muscles lay hidden beneath. When he pressed his fingers into hers, careful yet firm, he was barely able to reach the sinew due to her thick layer of skin, so unlike his own latex thin flesh. Beneath it he could almost feel their restlessness, grossly unsettled at the idea of being still for so long.

They may have been motionless but they weren’t lifeless. They couldn’t be, not when signs of survival marked her hands like a Jackson Pollock painting.

The most obvious ones were the ones he tried his hardest to ignore; the burn wounds from London, now healed into a dull light red, replaced a majority of the original tissue on her palms and fingers. In between where the two parts met, a mountain range of peeling calluses ran through the length of her hand, armor painstaking forged through countless battles and broken blisters. She sported a plethora of smaller marks randomly strewn about, some proudly on the tops of her hands while others hid in grooves and crevices; as with the rest of the scars on her body, he could name how she got each and every single one, from pre-kishin bite to baking accident.

The weapon meticulously ran his fingers over each and every healed wound, hoping that she could somehow feel the silent apology in every press of his fingertips.

“Soul?” 

He gave a grunt in acknowledgement, focused entirely on the literal task at hand.

“Could you tell me a story?”

It took him a moment to fully process her request. When he finally did, he paused, before nodding once and leaning over to reach for his bag. This wasn’t the first time Maka wasn’t able to hold a book in the infirmary and, while he would never admit it himself, Soul did a pretty mean Long John Silver impression. One hand rummaged through crumpled homework and binders while the other continued to massage shapeless forms into her palms.

“Ah, crap, looks like I forgot _Treasure Island_ at home. I can run to the library to see if they have a copy.” He didn’t wait for a response before beginning to stand, only stopping after Maka made a quick noise of protest.

“No, not that one,” she said. 

That was odd: he remembered her enjoying the book last night.

“Alright then... what about _The Neverending Story_?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“ _Tales from Earthsea_?”

“No, Soul-“

“ _Pride and Prejudice_?”

“Soul—“

“Shakespeare? How’d it go… ‘Alas, poor Yorick, I knew hi—'”

“I don’t want a book from the library.”

When he only cocked his head at her in confusion, Maka continued; "I want to hear one of yours.”

Oh. _Oh_.

“Only if that’s okay with you, of course,” she tacked on, flush suddenly creeping up her face.

For the second time that afternoon, Soul was caught entirely off guard. The meister hadn’t inquired about his family since their first month of partnership, not after it led to the fight that nearly destroyed their resonance capabilities entirely. The little information she had learned about them was always given to her unprompted and at Soul’s discretion, usually to pass the time on long plane flights or stakeouts. It was one of their unspoken rules, placed right in between _Don’t pry about Maka’s mother_ and _Never invite Spirit Albarn into the apartment._

However, nothing about the past couple months have been exactly normal. Maybe it was the earnest expression on her face or the residual guilt nibbling away at his soul, but the weapon felt none of usual the defensive fear he would usually get at her suggestion; just a particular doting kind of melancholy.

“Of course it’s okay, bookworm,” he sighed. The chair scraped across the tile as he sat back down. “Just give me some time to think of something.”

He mentally flipped through the sparse (but steadily expanding) folder labeled ‘happy memories’ in his brain, struggling to find ones that she didn’t already know or wasn’t actively involved in. He frowned, seemingly coming up empty. The dull buzzing anxiety in his chest increased in volume the longer he deliberated.

There was one thing he could talk about, but…

_We mustn’t speak of her anymore in this household, Solomon. Can’t you see what she’s done to your music-- your future?_

...second thoughts started forming in his head.

_Honestly, we should consider this a blessing. Maybe now you won’t be distracted with all that jazz nonsense._

Oh. This was a bad idea.

He nervously ran his thumb over the ridges of his fist before glancing up to see if Maka changed her mind about story time with Soul. When he met her eyes, he was hit with a sudden sense of deja vu as he forced himself to choke back a sudden bark of laughter; they were wide in anticipation, pupils dilated the same way they were before cracking open the spine of a brand new book or delivering the finishing blow on a particularly tough pre-kishin. If she had full control of her body, Soul had no doubt that she would have scooted to the very edge of the mattress, acting as if proximity would somehow enhance the vividity of every single one of his words.

Maka cared so much about what he had so say, convinced that his voice was as valuable a sound as the music he created. A blossoming courage replaced the hollow guilt in his soul, the kind only she had the ability to inspire within him time and again.

If she thought he deserved to be heard, the least he could do was give her something worth listening to.

“How much have I told you about my grandmother?”

Maka’s eyes impossibly widened further as the words left his mouth, almost as if she were somehow aware of the sensitivity of the topic. Knowing her, she probably was.

“Only that she exists,” she replied. He squeezed her hands playfully and joined in when she giggled in response, soft baritone mingling with soprano in the air above them. 

“Well, buckle up, Albarn. The life of Gertrude Alma Evans is _not_ for the faint of heart.”

Soul started with his personal favorite story from before he was born; one involving a familiar orange motorbike and a police chase across the Vegas strip that put her on the state of Nevada’s personal shitlist. Remembering his own initial listening of the story, he tried his best to emulate the same cadence his grandmother used, pausing at _just_ the right moments to get Maka to hold her breath and curse at his teasing suspense. Evans did always have a flair for the dramatics, after all.

He got through the entire story eventually, only _slightly_ encouraged by Maka’s promises of chops for every further manufactured cliffhanger.

Soul was halfway though his second tale when he noticed his audience becoming less responsive. He continued, albeit slightly less animated, watching her eyelids flutter briefly closed before shooting back open and revealing unfocused green. Maka hung onto every word for as long as she could, but even she wasn't strong enough to resist the siren call of a late afternoon nap.

The weapon stopped when her eyes remained closed and her breathing evened out, imagining Grandma Evans' laugh at the idea that her misadventures still remained effective bedtime stories even a decade later. As carefully as he could, he propped his hands against her shoulders and back, laying her down so that her head was resting comfortably on the pillow. He wasn’t a strong man by any means, but the ease in which he could maneuver her still body always reminded him of how _fragile_ she could be. 

Beneath all the layers of fiery bite and stubborn passion, Maka was still _human;_ she had skin where he had steel, a heart where he had a blade.

He needed to get stronger; strong enough to protect every inch of flesh and bone that housed a soul so ephemeral it could leave his behind without a moment’s notice _._

The weapon stood up, collecting his belongings as quietly as he could and tip-toeing out of the infirmary to give her privacy. He was halfway to the doorway when Maka wearily called out for him, not unlike a mewling kitten.

He rolled his eyes. _Stubborn idiot._

“We can finish the story tomorrow, Maka. You need to rest.” 

The meister hummed, only half-comprehending his words through the thick fog of exhaustion. 

“She sounds so nice...” she slurred. “Your grandmother, I mean... I hope I get to meet her one day.”

Eyes enticed shut by the embrace of sleep, Maka missed the sad smile that ghosted Soul’s lips when he finally responded.

“Yeah… me too.”

* * *

_She slept a lot those days._

_The doctors said it was because of the medicine they gave her, gently reassuring him that as long as the monitor was still beeping, she would eventually wake up. Its LED screen towered over them, dimly casting the two occupants of the hospital room in sickly green. The way its cries cut through the other noise in the air, insufferably sharp and steady, reminded Solomon of the metronome that dictated the grueling pace of his life and music._

_The display read 53 beats per minute, mapping every pulse with a knife-sharp mountain’s peak. It’s ironic, really, how the tempo of such a vivacious woman’s soul ended up being a stately adagio._

_He knew he only had about an hour before the preparatory school noticed his absence and contacted his parents. While she was unconscious almost every time he cut class to visit her, this time he couldn’t fully swallow the tears of disappointment that dotted and soaked into the sheets of her bed._

_Selfishly, Solomon wanted to hear her voice one last time before either one of them finally left._

_Instead, he took one of her hands in his and held them as if he could moor her to the land of the living through sheer force of will. They were bigger than his, though not by much, and were malformed where drumsticks once dug deep into fleshy palms and crevices. His long fingers kneaded knobby bones and thick wrinkles until his tears had dried, carefully avoiding the machinery, tubes, and wire that kept the steady march of her life ringing throughout the room._

_Beep. Rest. Beep. Rest. Beep. Rest. Beep. Rest._

_He was so focused on counting the chimes from the monitor that he nearly missed it when her form stirred underneath the sheets, an impossibly frail motion that barely disturbed the thin fabric._

_“Eugene, darling? Have you finally come for me?” Her glazed eyes struggled to blink away the remnants of a drug-induced sleep, squinting at the white haired figure seated by her side._

_Solomon flinched at the sound of his late grandfather’s name, who died a decade prior to his birth in a tour bus accident._

_“No, Gran. It’s just me.”_

_While her eyes remained unseeing, the gap-toothed smile that spread across her face was one of genuine recognition._

_“Just you!? My dear Soul, I missed you so much.” She tried to prop herself up but stopped halfway, failing to mask the wince the herculean task elicited. “You know, you’re just as bad as your brother with how little you visit.”_

_He swallowed dryly, rubbing his knuckles as he watched her struggle to return to her original position. “We try our best to see you when we can.”_

_“Yes, yes, I’m well aware. With the tight leash your parents keep you on, it’s a miracle I get to see you at all.” She craned her neck to search the room. “Where is my ghastly son, anyway? I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since the school year started.”_

_He remained silent, not willing to inform her that Edmund Evans was thousands of miles away reveling in blistering stage lights and standing ovations. As the silence stretched on, Grandma’s smile faded._

_“Well, your mother certainly didn’t drive you here… You’re not skipping class again, are you?” His continued silence was all the answer she needed. “Oh, Soul. At this rate, you’re going to get kicked out of another school.”_

_Not like that’s going to matter anymore, his brain provided._

_“That’s kind of why I’m here to talk to you, actually,” he said instead, focusing on the feel of his knuckles rather than the sudden weightlessness in his chest. He took a deep breath before the firm pressure of her hand on his forearm stopped him from speaking a single word._

_“You’re here to say good-bye.”_

_He startled at the certainty in which she spoke his intentions, as if those five words weren’t meticulously tearing him apart from the inside out cell by fragile cell._

_“How did you know?”_ _  
__  
__Grandma Evans only smiled wryly. “Wesley told me what happened.”_

_“I thought Wes was touring with the state orchestra.”_

_“You’re not the only one who knows how to play hooky, dear,” she tutted. “It might’ve missed a generation with your father, but both you and your brother inherited my rebellious streak, for better or for worse.”_

_Despite the mischievous glint in her eye as she spoke, her tone revealed nothing but sincere pride and fondness. The pressure behind Solomon’s eyes built to unbearable levels._

_“So you know, then?”_

_She hummed in affirmation. “Nevada, huh? Figures the state the school’s at would be the one I’m still banned from ever entering. It’s been over five decades but you’d be surprised at how long those government officials can hold a grudge like damn teenagers!” She laughed, a booming sound that left her struggling for breath afterwards. “Not like I’m going anywhere anytime soon, eh kiddo?”_

_It was that familiar playful tone coming from her broken body that tipped Solomon over the edge, unleashing a sudden onslaught of tears and snot rolling down his reddening face. He struggled to hear his Grandmother’s comforting hushes and apologies over the sound of the wails that stole the oxygen from his lungs and left him shuddering violently. Overhead, the monitor continued its uncaring march:_

_Beep. Rest. Beep. Rest. Beep. Rest. Beep._

_“Oh, my poor, poor Soul,” she cooed, reaching to thumb the fat globs of tears from his cheeks. “Even when you cry, you look so much like your grandfather. I’ll be sure to tell him all about you and your wonderful music when I see him soon.”_

_Solomon shook his head fervently. “I hate my music, Gran,” he choked out between heaving sobs. “I hate it so much. Nobody is going to make me play the piano once I get there, and I’m not going to ever.”_

_She only smiled sadly at his confession. “I never expected you to.” Then, with sudden gravitas, “But listen to me: I don’t ever want you to quit, you hear? You can stop playing for one, two, ten, twenty years for all I care, but don’t you dare give music up entirely, Solomon Eugene Evans.”_

_“What if… what if I never want to play again? What if I’m sick of being an Evans?”_

_“Being an Evans isn’t what makes you a musician,” she said, melancholy settling deep in her eyes. “They never deserved to hear your music in the first place. This family failed you. I failed you for letting them, and I can only hope that one day you can forgive me for that.”_

_The words only made him more upset, causing him to blubber about how she had nothing to apologize for, that she was the only reason he continued piano at all, that being an Evans was all he’d ever known and will ever know, and how terrified that fact made him. His grandmother continued to whisper soft reassurances and gently wipe his face until the torrential bawling receded into hiccupping whimpers._

_When it finally did, she removed her hand from his face and placed it over his palm, unintentionally transferring the salty remnants of his tears onto his fingers. She waited until he met her crimson eyes with his matching red-rimmed ones to speak, each and every word weighted with absolute sincerity:_

_“One day, you’ll find people who’ll love you for you; people who you’d want to protect and cherish, to share your music with and who deserve to hear it. Your grandfather was that person for me, gave me a reason to keep going even after I got laughed off of stage after stage after stage.”_

_Her grip on his hand tightened, velvet fingertips digging into the back of his hand as if she were engraving her words onto his skin and not just his very soul:_

_“Maybe you will find them at that Death whatever Weapon Academy, maybe not. But until that day comes, promise me that you’ll continue to play, if not for me then for yourself. Play piano not as an Evans-- never again as an Evans if that’s what you want-- but as my own dear and talented Soul.”_

* * *

The evening sun dyed the walls of the living room a tangy orange. Empty soda cans and pizza boxes were piled on the counter, leaving the room smelling faintly of cheap corn syrup and oregano. There was no noise aside from the shuffling of game pieces being packed away into their respective containers by the remaining pair of occupants. One person separated Monopoly money into neat piles while the other stuffed Uno cards into a thin cardboard box.

Maka thumbed the purple dollars, enjoying the texture of the paper strips as she basked in warm satisfaction-- the kind that only blooms after a night well spent with people well-loved. 

“Do you think Crona had fun today?” she asked.

A soft hum of thought filled the room. “They seemed livelier than usual,” Soul said while scooping up the colorful deck. “Can’t believe it was the poor kid’s first time eating a pepperoni and cheese though. That’s seriously fucked up.”

“You’ve never had a PB&J until last month.”

“That's different! I’ve spent every waking moment as a new man making up for it!” Maka laughed as cards slipped out the box he shook towards the direction of the kitchen, where she knew the value tubs of peanut butter and grape jam sat woefully near empty. 

They returned to their respective tasks, falling into comfortable silence. She watched his fingers deftly collect the deck strewn on the table, surprisingly effortless considering its slick surface, and tried to parse any words he left unspoken. To her relief, there were none; despite his supposed disdain for social interaction, it appears even a cool guy like Soul can find enjoyment in a board game or two. If she focused, she could feel his waves of contentment harmonize with hers in his soul space. 

For the first time since her discharge from the infirmary, he was completely unguarded, walls meticulously disassembled by lingering fondness towards his friends. If he only knew how much they all appreciated him in return; how the speckle of tenderness that unknowingly burrowed its way into her soul all those years ago grew like a parasite and threatened to overwhelm her during quiet moments such as these. It left her yearning for something that she could never have the courage to put into words, feelings too similar to what Mama and Papa would describe years before they split. 

Currently, it was reminding her of something she’d been wanting to ask of Soul, a simple request that’s been eating at her since their rematch with Crona.

Maka was reluctant to shatter their snapshot of peaceful domesticity, unsure of how he would react. However, she also knew that she would never get a better opportunity to ask. If there was anything the meister knew how to do, it was to strike while the iron’s hot and the weapon’s at ease.

“Hey, Soul?” she started, trying to add as much innocence as possible to the monosyllabic name.

“What’s up?”

“Do you remember what happened that night? In the Black Room?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, the edgy tension that disappeared from his body hours ago returned with a vengeance. The casual tone never left his voice, but his hands neglected the remaining cards in order to drum restlessly on the tabletop. _Tap, tap, tippity tap. Tap, tap, tippity tap._

“What about it?” 

Ignoring the pounding in her chest, Maka swallowed down the shame of robbing them of their moment of peace and prepared for the worst:

“Can you… Can you teach me how to dance?”

The air was agonizingly still as the weapon processed her words. When he finally did, his mouth stretched into a grin, sharp and cruel.

The meister prided herself in her ability to anticipate all possible outcomes, but knowing that the echoing, raucous laughter of her closest friend was coming didn’t stop the flood of shame that permeated to her very soul. As the heat of humiliation began to choke her face and eyes, the image of her Mama in her head chastised her for her silly display of vulnerability, for forgetting that despite everything, Soul could never _not_ be anything more than a _man._

“Alright, sheesh! You didn’t have to be so rude about it,” she snapped, throwing the bills onto the table in a messy heap. Unshed tears threatened to spill and she moved to stomp towards her room before they could fall.

She was only able to take a few strides before spindly fingers wrapped around her wrist hastily, firm enough to stop her in her tracks but not so much so that she couldn’t break free if she wanted to. When she whipped around to glare wetly at him, his humoured expression never faltered, instead only adopting an apologetic upturn of the eyebrows as he spoke:

“I don’t remember ever saying no, idiot.”

As he led her back to the living room by the hand, Maka was unsure if the faint red lining his face was just a trick of the sunset light filtering in through the window.

;

“Dancing is a lot like resonance. In combat, I trust you to take the lead. On the dance floor, you have to trust me.”

They were in the TV area, coffee table and couch pushed against the wall to create a makeshift ballroom. A jazz piano piece wafted through the speakers of the CD player, slow and lyrical melody making Maka’s heart ache with bittersweet nostalgia despite never having heard it before. A couple feet away, the evidence of their game night remained unpacked and abandoned.

It was almost humorous how juvenile the pair looked compared to the sophistication they bore in the Black Room. Like in soul space, Soul held one of her hands above their heads, resting the other on the small of her back while Maka perched hers on his shoulder. However, gone were the freshly pressed suits and ornate dresses, instead replaced by stained tank tops and well-loved pajama bottoms. His hair was wilting, gel reaching the end of its lifespan, while hers was let down and tickled the back of her neck. Their feet were either bare or socked, a fact that they were both grateful for after the fifth time Maka slammed her heel into his toes.

“Christ, did you get worse!?” he gritted out in between her bashful apologies. “Stop trying to guess where I’m going to be, Maka. I know this is different, but you’re going to have to follow me.”

“I’m trying!”

And she was, really! But every couple seconds, right when she felt comfortable enough to anticipate his next step, Soul would shift his pattern and they’d tug in opposite directions. This damn music wasn’t helping either; why wasn’t the pianist playing on time? Soul told her amusedly that he was, but he also said he was playing _on_ the _off-beat?_ How could you be off-beat and on tempo at the same time? That didn’t make any sense!

Maka concluded that music was very, very stupid.

“You’re doing it again,” he chided when he stepped left and she stepped right. His voice was patient, somehow only exacerbating her own bubbling frustration.

“It’s not fair! This isn’t like resonance at all!”

He didn’t make a usual jab about her petulant whining like she expected him to. Instead, his eyes lit up brightly, exposing a hidden intellect few got to see behind the ‘cool guy’ persona.

“Then why don’t we make it?”

Maka was about to ask what the _hell_ he was going on about before she startled at the feeling of his soul nudging hers, patiently waiting for an invitation into her soul space. He was trying for a low level resonance, she realized, something he had only initiated a few times before during their two years as partners. Aside from a light blush, his facial expression betrayed nothing as they continued their “dance,” which was now more of an awkward swaying. His soul gave another gentle poke before she pushed aside her shock long enough to let him in, instinctually leaning into the familiar warmth of their bond.

Contrary to what the online forums say, resonance isn’t a form of mind-reading; not exactly, anyway. Instead, what was transferred through the bond was something much more _primal_ than just mental words or phrases: it was feelings, intentions, every stray communication between neurons and synapses that told the other when they were going to move and how. These factors mingled into what could be considered “thoughts,” but in reality were just implications of them, felt rather than heard.

It was incredibly useful for combat as it eliminated the time between processing a phrase and acting upon it, allowing both parties to accommodate to the other’s movements as if it were their own; a skill that was surprisingly transferable to ballroom dancing, it would appear.

They fell into step with one another almost immediately after entering resonance, transforming their awkward shuffle into confident and synchronized strides. Maka could feel the smugness radiate off of him in waves when his idea came into fruition, earning him a slow but fond eye-roll. _Prideful boy._ They continued that way for a while, hand-in-hand and step-by-step, souls harmonizing contentedly with the soft jazz that filled the room. She could feel Soul’s intent to speak before the words left his mouth;

“This is a lot different without an audience, huh?” Neither of them needed elaboration to know who he was referring to.

“Does it still bother you?” Maka asked without thinking, cringing at the seed of anxiety she'd suddenly planted in their soul space.

The bags under his eyes tightened in tandem with his wavelength when he tried to smile reassuringly.

“Not as much.”

He was lying, of course, more so out of habit than secrecy; they both knew how foolish it was to try to hide something during resonance.

She didn’t push the subject, instead focusing on quelling the tumultuous guilt in his soul while trying to reign in her own. It was an honorable attempt but a hopeless one; as it did with their positive emotions, their resonance fueled a feedback loop that exacerbated their unease to insurmountable levels. Their dance remained flawless, painlessly automatic, but the chaos in soul space created by their colliding anxieties became impossible to ignore.

Amongst their interlaced hands, he eternalized the feel of her scars on his palm as she ghosted his aching knuckles with the tips of her fingers.

“I’m sorry,” they said simultaneously. 

Soul’s eyes widened with Maka’s before darting away in shy laughter. Maka joined in, feeling both their apprehensions slightly ease at the chorusing sound.

“You first,” she suggested. He nodded shakily, waiting for a lull in the music before beginning to speak;

“I failed. You got hurt, keep _getting_ hurt despite me being your weapon. Hell, _I’ve_ hurt you, almost dragged you into _my_ madness because I wasn’t strong enough to protect you by myself.” Then, sotto voce; “I’m still not...”

 _...I don’t want to be the reason you’re in pain ever again,_ their resonance finished for him.

She shook her head as stabs of guilt made her heart ache and chest tighten, not entirely sure if they were hers or his.

“That’s not your responsibility to bear. Besides, I shouldn’t have been pushing us so hard to begin with. I’m not sure I would’ve if I knew about the black blood but… that’s no excuse for ignoring your boundaries.” She hesitated. “I guess… I guess I was just scared of being left behind...”

 _...of losing you again, in more ways than one_.

“Idiot. I’m not even that strong to begin with.”

“You’re stronger than you know, Soul.”

The weapon looked like he was about to argue, opening his mouth before the conviction of her words fully sunk in. His expression softened instead, mouth curling into a small smile as the river-like chasms eased from his furrowed brow.

“I guess we both are.”

The music sang its final measures before sinking the room into silence, causing the two dancers to remain joined but slow to a halt. For a brief moment, there was no sound but the buzzing of their souls in tender determination.

As the introductory notes of the next track began, Maka squeezed the hand on his shoulder, feeling more at ease than she had in years.

“No more secrets, okay? Let’s focus on getting stronger-- together this time.”

In response, Soul gave their clasped hands a quick squeeze as well.

“I think I like the sound of that.”

Unbeknownst to him, the fond expression he was wearing was the same one he wore while thinking about the people he loved. Maka wasn’t sure why the realization that it was directed towards her didn’t scare her as much as it should have.

Soul adjusted the timing of their steps to match the newest track, a hopeful tune set at a leisurely pace. They danced until the sun set and the album was exhausted of songs, resonance remaining firm throughout their entire secret performance. The yellow light of the street lamps outside cut through the dusk and into their apartment, illuminating patches of carpet like spotlights would on a stage.

Wrapped around each other in the quiet of their living room, Maka closed her eyes and allowed herself to pretend that they were the only two people in the universe.

* * *

He wasn't strong enough. He was the only person that could save them and he wasn't strong enough. _  
_

Deep within the tempest that time forgot, Soul could only watch helplessly as the monster Mosquito beat his friends into masses of bruises and blood, one by one by one. Filtering in through Maka’s soul perception was every wave of pain, desperation, and fear from the six other students, reverberating through his soul space and mingling with his own in agonizing harmony. In a distant room, an ogre shuffled along to the manic melody, the tapping of its heels taunting Soul with the promise of the power to _protect what was his._

The volume of Maka’s wavelength began to falter as the battle continued, slipping deeper and deeper into unconsciousness with every punch he wished he had the ability to block. When her hands briefly went slack around his scythe after being buried into the concrete, sudden weightless feeling igniting desperation within him, he announced his plan to the group.

The demon crowed in victory.

Soul entered the Black Room. The familiar embrace of his meister’s secure grip on his weapon form remolded itself to fit the snug of the pinstripe suit jacket. The sounds of the ongoing battle were quieter here, as if muffled through layers of soundproof curtains. In the center of the room, the red ogre sat with another person on the bench of the piano, grey hair illuminated by invisible stagelights.

The two appeared to be talking, the tittering demon gesturing wildly as the figure of his grandmother nodded along. She looked younger than he remembered, as if years of illness never accelerated the atrophy of her life and body. When she finally noticed him, he saw that her skin was paler and her eyes were the same golden hue as the ogre’s.

Soul knew she wasn’t real, that her soul was either in a hospital thousands of miles away or in a realm far beyond the material, but the familiar gap-toothed grin she shot him quelled the unease that always bucked in his heart before a performance.

“You found them,” she said. “Your reasons for playing.”

The apparition of Grandma Evans faded with every step he took until only the ogre was left, swinging its legs over the checkered floor. It hopped off as the weapon seated himself, splashing thick globs of black blood onto his suit pants as it landed.

“Come now, my dear Soul,” it cackled. “What are you holding back for?”

He cracked his fingers, each pop echoing throughout the quiet of his soul space like gunfire. His hands raised over his head in anticipation, clawed and predatory, twitching with the promise of madness. The sounds of the battle outside diminuendoed into nothingness, isolating the weapon on the deserted stage of his mind's design.

Soul took a deep breath, reaching out to the light thrumming of the six other souls and feeling their internal melodies. Amidst the amalgamation of haunting nocturnes and restless toccatas, the solo fanfare of a soul more familiar than his own cut through the noise and sang. Its song was tender and reassuring, laced with something that Soul couldn't name but made his heart ache with something akin to yearning.

He flexed his fingers slightly before sending them crashing towards ivory like twin meteors. As inky euphoria drowned out the rest of his senses, the pianist once known as Evans discarded fear, unraveling his identity into ribbons of measures and notes until nothing remained but that lingering, aching feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from The Crooked Kind by Radical Face. 
> 
> Soul’s father being a touring musical performer (as well as his and Grandpa Evans’ names) was inspired by playwright Eugene O'Neill’s family and his autobiographical work “Long Day’s Journey into Night.” I like to imagine Soul inherited his dramatics from his pop.
> 
> I headcanon Maka taller than Soul by about two inches. Crona towers over all of them, of course.
> 
> The “Alas, Poor Yorick” Soul quotes in the infirmary is a famous line/monologue from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (a play I secretly nodded to once more earlier in this chapter)
> 
> Music HCs:  
> I HC Grandma Evans as a jazz drummer because it’s the complete antithesis to everything the Evans family stands for. For reference, check out the Drum Battles between jazz legends Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa or Ed Shaughnessy on Youtube. And admit it; seeing a granny go ham on some drums would be sick as hell.  
> The piece Soul and Maka dance to in their apartment is ‘Ruby, My Dear’ by Thelonious Monk, a piano piece that I think really captures feelings of domesticity and always makes me feel warm inside.


	4. Interlude: Ghost Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When their love debt was finally collected, it left them nothing except the realization that they were unhappy together and purposeless alone. //
> 
> Soul could only watch in terror as his love debt piled up to insurmountable levels, dreading the day when it would all inevitably come crashing down due to his own inadequacies.
> 
> Content Warnings: References to emotional child abuse (Soul parents); Depictions of child neglect (Soul and Maka’s parents); References to alcohol and adultery (Maka’s parents); Brief references to panic attacks (Soul and Maka); Brief non-graphic depictions of injury and the treatment of; references to the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and/or trauma (Soul and Maka) including: lack of appetite and disassociation

Maka Albarn knew what love was, had built herself a shelter deep within the desolation of its aftermath. Love wasn’t benevolent or enigmatic like the stories made it out to be; it was a ticking time bomb, loaded with empty promises and meaningless gestures that masked the seconds leading up to its inevitable explosion. As she continued to pick through the crumbling remnants of her parent’s marriage, shrapnel of broken trust cutting into her soul as easily as the blade of a scythe, Maka vowed never to be deceived by Cupid’s cruel facade ever again.

The most insidious thing about love was its false sense of permanence. There existed a misconception that it was imperishable, an infallible edifice that could weather any storm no matter how severe. In reality, all it took was a stray word or a wandering hand to expose the cracks that spiderwebbed underneath its thin veneer. It made people blindly complacent to their own self-destruction, had Mama and Papa eager to sacrifice more and more of themselves until the cost of what they had lost caught up to them a decade later. When their love debt was finally collected, it left them nothing except the realization that they were unhappy together and purposeless alone.

The greatest loss, the one that expedited the decay, was the one that she caused. When she was eight years old, in what could only be described as a fluke accident, a pre-kishin got the best of her parents and sent Mama to the emergency room, hanging onto life through nothing but tubes of fluid and oxygen. While she made a mostly complete physical recovery, it was then that the young lovers decided to retire from hunting entirely; it was one thing to die in the line of battle as a couple, but orphaning their only daughter, still so innocent despite the horror that colored their lives, would be woefully unforgivable. Lord Death, who knew the struggle of single fatherhood all too well, reluctantly processed Kami’s resignation forms on the condition that Spirit continues his duties as his personal weapon/assistant. 

It would be a tragedy, after all, to have a young girl raised without a mother.

They gave up their futures willingly not only because they loved each other, but because they loved _her._ It was Maka that split their love two ways, that forced them to pick between the passion of freedom and the safety of stagnation. She finally understood her role in the collapse, the meaning behind the pitying looks that were shot their way whenever they walked the halls of the DWMA as a family.

_“What a waste.”_

In the following years, as she watched their love for each other putrefy without the distraction of combat, she found herself agreeing with their assessment more and more. Unable to afford the rent of their house, they had to move further into the city, settling with a small apartment by the Academy. Papa started to come home from work at increasingly late hours, the scent of cheap liquor and perfume that stained his suit jacket strengthening by the day. Mama tried her hardest to raise their daughter in between shouting matches, which only increased in frequency and severity until there was no time left for the little angel left to watch on the sidelines.

When Maka realized she wore the same sad eyes as her Mama, nauseatingly green with a deep-set melancholy, the only thing she could think was _what a waste, indeed._

The festering remnants of love long expired seeped in between floorboards and behind peeling wallpaper like black mold. The youngest Albarn immersed herself in myths and fiction to escape from the rot that threatened to suffocate her entirely.

She discovered that when the Gods up above brawled and spat over love, it was their children on Earth that suffered the consequences, ignorant to its causes yet innocent all the same. She learned about Zeus’ uncontrollable promiscuity, acts of passionate romance followed by schemes of bitter vengeance from those he betrayed. She read about the rise and fall of great civilizations and wondered if Helen of Troy ever felt guilty for the cities that were leveled over her affection-- for the destruction she inadvertently caused as a result of reckless mortals and uncaring higher powers.

No, love wasn’t virtuous; it was a calamity waiting to happen. She strove to become strong enough to never fall victim to its temptations and protect those who did. She wanted to prove to her Papa that the only thing needed to create a Death Scythe of his caliber was a loyalty untainted by false pretenses of affection _._ So when a white-haired boy with the jaws of a shark promised just that, entering her life only a few short months after Mama had Left, Maka partnered with him without a moment’s hesitation.

At first glance, Soul Eater was not an affectionate man. He moved in a permanent skulk and spoke in grumbled half-answers, red eyes constantly darting between whoever he was talking to and the nearest exit. He was quick to defend himself and even quicker to close himself off, becoming infuriatingly dismissive towards anything he deemed above or beneath him. If he needed to, he could make his words cut deeper than demon steel while baring his fangs in frustration, almost as if to say _please stop_ or _don’t come any closer._

Initially, Maka took these as signs of distrust, made her doubt the integrity of their partnership-- of _him_. It wasn’t until they began resonating, _really_ resonating, did she discover that the simple reason for all of his habits was that he was just _scared._ Soul reminded her of the stray cats they would sometimes see on their way to school, skittish and ill-tempered, only leaving the safety of the shadows once they were certain it was sound. She learned to wait for Soul to open up to her, uncharacteristically patient, and only then did she begin to see bits and pieces of the genuine boy she met at orientation.

The love that was buried deep in his soul was still as safely guarded as it was wickedly intriguing, masked by layers upon layers of biting sarcasm and toothy scowls. He became so good at hiding it that Maka didn’t realize just how much of it he had already given her until the first time he took a hit meant for her.

They had been hunting for four months together when it happened. It wasn’t a deep wound by any means; despite his lackadaisical demeanor, Soul was at least agile enough to sidestep most of the attack after tackling her out of the way, sharp talons just grazing the skin of his shoulder. The pair recovered quickly and finished off the pre-kishin with almost embarrassing ease, its thick hide useless against the sheer force of her swing. Before he was able to grab the soul, Maka raised her hand above her head and brought it down as hard as she could onto his skull.

She knew that she should be grateful, that his quick thinking was the only reason why they were both still breathing despite her incompetence. It was difficult to act on that rationale, however, when it and the rest of her thoughts were overwhelmed by unending waves of fear. She yelled at him on instinct not because she was mad, but because she was _terrified_ of the reminder of his human mortality; of his stupid willingness to sacrifice himself; of his ignorance regarding what a selfless gesture like that really meant _._ When she asked him why he did it, anger masquerading how vulnerable she truly felt, the words that fiercely left his mouth confirmed all of her worst fears and more:

_“Because I care about you, idiot!”_

And she knew this, of course. But hearing it spoken aloud as his blood pooled on the ground beneath them, saturating the asphalt like freshly fallen rain, made Maka realize just how futile it was to try to outrun the blight that she inherited from her parents. He was way too emotionally invested in their partnership, they both were, only a few short months in and already on the precipice of destruction. So why, then, did it feel so _right_ to hear those words said in his voice? Why did Maka instinctively want to do nothing more than believe him, to lean into his tenderness despite the warning bells blaring in her soul?

It wasn’t until that night, sleepless and staring at the hotel ceiling, did she suddenly realize that Soul had been secretly gifting her affection _months_ prior to that battle, concealing a trail of breadcrumbs that led up to the grand gesture of sacrifice. The reason why she didn’t notice it was that it didn’t look like hers, didn’t take the form of soft smiles or patient encouragement; in fact, Maka had never met somebody that showed fondness quite like him before. Soul was averse to hugs but quick to initiate high-fives, apathetic to insults but fiercely defensive when they were aimed at her. It was putting aside his own apprehension for the sake of their resonance, trusting her to care for the parts of himself that he didn’t. It was pieces of her favorite candy mysteriously left on the countertop; homemade birthday cakes charred black on the edges and topped with fresh strawberries; blankets wrapped around her shoulders when she fell asleep on the sofa; the care in which he tended to each and every single one of her wounds as if it were his own body.

It was a quiet but intense form of loyalty _,_ so unlike her parents. Maka regretted ever taking it for granted.

She bought him a new jacket to replace the one that had been ruined, a slick leather one that reflected light off its inky surface and bore patches. It had cut into a large portion of her personal stipend, but seeing his face brighten with awe made it worth every cent. When he tried to urge her to return it, stammering about how he couldn’t take it, had done nothing to deserve it, she shrugged and lied about losing the receipt that was folded neatly inside her wallet. Her gratitude for the night prior was left unspoken, but the understanding nod he gave her after trying it on was all she needed to know that he got the message loud and clear; it was going to be okay. They were going to be okay.

As the years together passed by, each adding more to their collections of scars, Soul continued to blur the lines between loyalty and love. He never stopped performing those small acts of kindness. They did, however, become more obvious, hiding behind sarcasm less and less as he regained the courage to care. The haunting legacy of her parents still loomed over her, casting a shadow of doubt over their partnership that never fully went away. But every single awkward gesture from the weapon kept the darkness from ever touching the two of them, reassuring her soul with the knowledge of just how different they were from their predecessors.

Maka Albarn thought she knew what love was, but for the first time since she witnessed its fiery aftermath, she began to doubt herself. Because when she countered his teasing with false barbs of her own, it wasn’t laced with an underlying desire to hurt. When she caught him off guard with compliments and small gifts that reminded her of him, it wasn’t for false niceties or future favors. When she held him in her unfaltering hands, making him stronger with every battle won and wound healed, it wasn’t to get back at her father, not anymore.

It was to hear the playful lilt of his voice whenever he was challenged, eyes brightening with mirth and wit; to see him smile, not the guarded half-quirk of the lip he typically wore, but a genuine one, one that fully exposed rows of wicked teeth and baby pink gums. She would do anything and everything to let him know that his devotion was more than reciprocated, that neither of them had to hide their affection out of fear of the other. She was willing to risk the pain and desolation of betrayal once more, all for the simple reason that she just enjoyed being around him.

Maka did it because she knew that Soul loved her, conveyed it with a loyalty that never threatened to falter no matter how many times she screwed up. His love boasted a type of permanence she never once saw in any other relationship, much less her parents’, imperceptibly subtle but fiercely passionate. It wasn’t until that night on the spotless shores of Alaska, listening to the crashing waves uncaring of the early morning hours, did she discover that the overwhelming heat in her soul was from the realization that she loved him too.

* * *

Solomon Eugene Evans knew what love was, discovered it festering between monochrome keys the moment his fingers first ghosted their surfaces at the age of four. If he practiced hard enough, performed flawlessly enough, he could pry that love out of hiding with the music that he made. On the rare occasions that he succeeded, it manifested itself through tight smiles and stilted words of praise; scraps of parental affection that repeatedly drove him towards that wretched instrument in a desperate attempt to satiate his soul’s yearning for _more._

Love was quantifiable, compartmentalized and allocated like music notes on a page. There was only so much of it to go around in the Evans’ household, warmthless yet invaluable, as easily rescinded as it was painstakingly earned. As much as he tried not to, Soul resented his brother for earning more than his fair share of love-- for choosing to excel and leaving him nothing except unreachable expectations. He knew it wasn’t Wes’ fault; neither of them could have predicted that the meticulous distribution of love was interchangeable with the distribution of first-place trophies and accolades until Soul failed to secure them time and time again (and again, and again).

Maybe at one point in his life, when he was young and ignorant, Soul thought love was something beautifully consistent. But when Wes’ career began to overshadow his own, bisecting their brotherhood with jealousy and distance, the warmth of what Soul thought was love eroded into something shockingly bitter. When his grandmother was admitted to the terminal ward, it froze over entirely with the agonizing frost of grief. As the ice gradually melted, imperceptibly slow, it left behind an ever-expanding emptiness, a pocket of darkness that further tinged his song with an indescribable impurity.

Love wasn’t something that should be given or accepted recklessly, he learned. It was less painful to earn nothing at all than to lose something that wasn’t deserved to begin with.

For every wrong note or dropped rhythm, Soul was loved a little less, left behind for a little longer. By the time he and his family discovered the weapon gene coursing through his veins, as wicked and sharp as the music he created, he had forgotten what the anxious gnawing of love had felt like, replaced long ago with the hollowing ache of loneliness. When they filled out the paperwork enrolling him in Death Weapon Meister Academy, the youngest Evans felt no guilt secretly discarding his surname for something that would guarantee him a fresh start.

And so, the pianist with a hole in his soul and a blade in his blood packed his things and _ran._ He ran from the name that he hated and the unlovable music that he crafted, never once faltering to look back at the life he left behind. Soul didn’t stop running until he collided headfirst into a pigtailed girl with emerald eyes and a stubbornness that was only rivaled by her ignorance.

Maka Albarn didn’t know how the world worked. She didn’t throw things away when they stopped working or give up when a task proved to be impossible. She gave away her affection carelessly and haphazardly, seemingly oblivious to the transactional burden she was unloading onto others (onto _him)_. When she first encountered his walls, fortified by years of defensive solitude, her immediate instinct was to attempt to dismantle them, unaware that her attention was all it took to erode the barriers he worked so hard to maintain like acid.

No, Maka Albarn didn’t know how the world worked; and yet everything that she did, from the gentle attempts at conversation to the grand flourishes of his scythe, was motivated by so much undeserved kindness that it petrified him. Soul could only watch in terror as his love debt piled up to insurmountable levels, dreading the day when it would all inevitably come crashing down due to his own inadequacies.

Worst of all, she didn’t come with a neat checklist of expectations he had to meet, forcing him to navigate his side of their budding relationship blind. Fortunately for him, aside from their initial meeting, she had little interest in his music or the piano; unfortunately, Soul still hadn’t the slightest idea what constituted a good weapon partner, what words and actions would make him seem like a worthwhile investment rather than a charity case. He kept the boxes in his room unpacked, always certain that the next mistake he made or the next argument they had would be the one that finally dried up her well of sympathy, and sent him crawling back to the East coast with his tail in between his legs.

The first time a pre-kishin slipped away from their grasp and sent them home bleeding and empty-handed, Soul was certain that she was going to abandon him, to replace him with a weapon that would guarantee the success that they both knew she deserved. Because if there was one thing he had learned about the meister in their three months as a pair, it was that despite her seemingly infinite kindness, Maka Albarn had very little patience for setbacks-- and even less for _failures._ That, at least, was something he was all too familiar with.

So when she expressed concern over his wounds, fluttering nervously with the first-aid kit while ignoring her own swelling face, Soul was once again left dumbfounded. While he could sense lingering frustration, not a single ounce of it was directed towards him. He couldn’t understand it. They lost _,_ he _failed;_ so why was she tending to him so carefully, as if he’d performed well enough to deserve it, as if it wasn’t his own incompetence that cost them the soul?

As she fussed and fretted over his cuts, unaware of his internal tempest of anxiety, she made him a promise that they would ‘ _get that bastard next time.’_ Soul’s breath caught in his throat.

Next time.

Despite his subpar performance, Maka wanted a ‘ _next time_ ’. No, that wasn’t all. Somewhere in his soul, he knew that she’d willingly give him as many ‘next times’ as he needed; that despite how many mistakes he made, she would always be there to help him back on his feet, unsolicited kindness never once threatening to waver against the force of every unmet expectation. The realization terrified him more than any pre-kishin ever did, or ever will.

When the hammering in his chest finally quieted enough for him to hear his own voice, he asked why she wanted to keep him around, hoping she couldn’t sense the quiet desperation that laced every word. Maka only laughed through a mouthful of blood, looking at him as if the answer were the most obvious thing in the universe;

_“Because I like being your friend, dummy.”_

And he knew this, of course. But for the first time in the brief history of their partnership, Soul allowed himself to believe it. Something small planted itself in his soul where the emptiness once was, radiating with the heat of fondness and potential.

The next morning, in a rare moment of vulnerability, he invited Maka to help him unpack the boxes in his room. She asked him no questions; he gave her no answers. Together, they sifted through the remnants of the Evans he buried long ago, cautiously reintroducing them to his new life piece by infinitesimal piece. With every hung band poster and displayed figurine, the defensive tension in his soul dissipated a little more, until eventually nothing remained but the unfamiliar warmth of domesticity.

Hesitantly, almost as if he were still waiting for permission, Soul began to call the space they shared home.

The weeks together turned into months that turned into _years_ of fierce combat and loyalty _._ The fear of abandonment, of being undeserving of her attention, never fully went away. It did, however, get quieter; enough so that he could confidently assert his position in their partnership, strengthening their bond both in and out of resonance. Soul learned to appreciate, and eventually accept, every gesture of affection the meister gave him, regardless of whether he believed he deserved it or not. In response, he became vulnerable enough to reciprocate her kindness more openly, not out of any obligation or fear, but for the simple, undeniable reason that he wanted to-- that it just felt _right_ to do so.

Soul Eater thought he knew what love was, but for the first time since he felt its bitter embrace, he wasn’t entirely sure. Because when he put in extra effort during his solo weapon classes, away from Maka’s watchful eyes, it wasn’t for her praise. When he teased her until she snapped or eased away frowns from her lips with jokes, it wasn’t for her affection. When he bled for her, threw himself in front of gnashing teeth and steel without a second thought, again and again, it wasn’t for her adoration or loyalty.

It was to make her proud of him, to watch those green eyes shine with satisfaction whenever his name was said in conjunction with hers; to see her smile, to coax her out-of-tune laughter out from between chipped canines and molars, as beautiful as it was rare. He would sacrifice everything and more just to keep her on this Earth, in his life, long enough to finally make it clear to her just how much she meant to him in his own silly, awkward ways.

Regardless of whether he succeeded or not, he knew that Maka still would have loved him, unknowingly told him so through every single unconditional act of kindness in lieu of spoken words. It wasn’t until that starry night on the shore of Alaska, six hours before the biggest battle of their lives, did Soul suddenly realize that the true motivation behind everything he did was that he loved her too.

* * *

Underneath an endless canopy of stars, a lone child born into war sat on the sand of an unfamiliar beach, watching wisps of vapour disappear with every breath timed to the rhythm of the tide. Far out in the distance, so far that the island itself was invisible, she could see the tempest that guarded the DWMA’s last hope, a swirling mass of purple that warped and violated the surrounding air. It shot into the sky like an angry beacon, an inescapable reminder of their upcoming battle, of just how much hung on their victory-- on _her_.

Maka instead watched how the moon worked tirelessly to pull the tides in and out, in and out, and wondered what would happen if it suddenly decided that it had had enough. Would the ocean miss the gravitational embrace of its distant lover, the ebb and flow of seafoam that kissed the sandy shore of the surface? Or would it find new life in its stagnation, reveling in its freedom from the unseen hand that coerced it into violence, into destroying ships and eroding cliff faces until nothing remained but dust?

The soft crunching of footsteps eased her out of her thoughts. The owner’s gait was unhurried, dragging their weight lazily through the sand as they approached. When the noise stopped a few inches from her, she didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

Despite not having soul perception, he somehow always knew exactly where to find her.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Maka. You’re going to freeze to death out here.”

She ignored him, fixing her gaze on the horizon. The meister wasn’t sure how long she’d been out here but the cold had stopped bothering her long ago, though whether from her body adjusting to the temperature or the numbness that permeated in her soul she wasn’t sure. Luckily, she had been aware enough to grab a coat despite the post-nightmare haze that clouded her thoughts, subconsciously throwing it over her sleeping clothes before walking out of their shared room.

When it was clear Maka wasn’t going to respond, Soul sighed deeply, a cloud of condensation obscuring his face like cigarette smoke. To her disappointment, he made no motion to go back to the hotel. Instead, he hunched down and moved to sit a couple of inches from her left. The ground shifted slightly as he displaced the sand next to her, wriggling until he was comfortable on the lumpy surface. Out from the corner of her eye, she could see him rub his arms fruitlessly as the chill pierced through the swollen fabric of his parka. A sharp pang of guilt shot through her when as he spoke, rough voice still catching up to his waking body.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Seconds had passed before she replied, timbre uncharacteristically hesitant;

“Not really.”

Soul nodded, understanding perhaps too well the discomfort of being forced into vulnerability. The white noise of the ocean instead occupied the space of conversation, a calming rhythmic sound that eased the tension with every gentle crash. They remained that way for a while, side by side, doing nothing except listening to the tempo of the water. The weapon eventually planted his hands behind him and leaned back, tilting his head towards the sky pockmarked with endless spirals of stars. An aurora bisected the night with an ephemeral wall of green and purple.

“Man, you don’t get a view like that in Death City,” he said in awe. “Reminds me a little bit of the sky in my hometown, actually.” Maka remained silent as she shifted her attention upwards to match his gaze.

Soul hummed subconsciously in thought, melancholic melody barely audible through the sound of the waves. It was a piece that Maka recognized but didn’t know the name of, one that she usually heard on loop after his own night terrors left him distant and trembling, grounding him back to reality when her gentle words weren’t enough. He stopped halfway through the second verse, seemingly set on what he wanted to say next.

“My brother and I used to go camping out in our backyard,” he started. “He had this really weird astrology phase when he was twelve, which really just meant getting dragged out of bed at God-knows-when for impromptu stargazing sessions.” He paused as if he were waiting for a response. When he didn’t get one, he continued unperturbed, ever confident that she was listening to every word anyway;

“We snuck out after our parents fell asleep and would watch the sky for hours. Sometimes, if it were warm enough, we would bring the extra sheets and fall asleep out there. Wes always made sure to wake us up early enough to tuck ourselves back in before our they noticed-- though it also helped that the night staff knew how to keep a secret.”

Soul raised one of his hands above his head, index finger skimming the stars it scanned the sky.

“He tried to teach me a few but none of them really stuck with me. The only one I could really remember was Polaris… that one right there.”

She looked at where he pointed and sure enough, there was the Polar Star, unmoving and steadfast despite the celestial chaos that surrounded it. It was exactly the same now as it was the first time she saw it a lifetime ago.

_“So remember, Maka! If you ever get lost, and Papa isn’t there to show you the way, just look up in the sky and look for--_

“Cynosura,” she muttered idly. “The Dog’s Tail.”

Soul couldn’t hide the sigh he let out at the sound of her voice, relief distracting him from the words she actually said. When he finally processed them, the ease melted away into confusion. “I thought it was part of a bear?”

“It is... for the most part,” Maka began hesitantly. “Before the Greeks decided on Ursa Minor, the constellation was actually thought to be the rear end of a dog-- Cynosura.” She paused to trace the constellation in the sky with her own finger, connecting six dots before stopping at the very tip of its tail where Soul was still pointing.

“Weirdly enough, there were actually no known canid constellations anywhere nearby. They eventually stopped using the name to refer to the entire constellation, but it still stuck around in a different form. Polaris, North Star, Cyonsura; it all means the same thing.”

Soul’s hand dropped back to his side as she finished her lecture. “To be fair, it _was_ kind of a lame name to begin with,” he said. “I mean, who wouldn’t pick the bear over some random dog’s ass.”

Maka smiled despite herself, as if the opinion of a fourteen-year-old boy could somehow influence the mythos of an entire civilization. She wondered if he knew about the tragedy surrounding the Ursa constellations, of the damnation of adultery and motherhood immortalized in the unspoken language of the stars.

“I don’t know,” she hummed. “I like dogs. They’re loyal.”

“They’re filthy, not to mention annoying. All they do is sleep and bark and beg for food before pissing on your carpet as thanks.”

“Funny, you didn’t say that when you were petting Mrs. Addington’s new puppy the other day.”

Soul made a noise as if he had just been slapped. “Now that’s just unfair! Sir Butternuts von Wigglebottom the Third is cooler than either of us will ever be, and you know that as well as I do.”

It was hearing that ridiculous name come out of his mouth in such a serious tone that finally put an end to Maka’s brooding. She let out an undignified snort before breaking out into laughter, sudden peals loud enough to drown out the crashing waves. It didn’t take long for Soul’s to harmonize with hers, softly at first before growing to match her intensity, draining all the remaining tension from the atmosphere. The last time they laughed like this was before the Kishin’s revival-- before Demon Tools, and Madness, and Arachnophobia-- ignorant of the burden that would finally snuff out the last vestiges of their innocence.

It took a couple of seconds for the laughter to finally peter out, leaving them both red-faced and breathless. For the first time since he joined her, they looked at each other. Soul was grinning with his teeth, condensation escaping in foggy puffs as he caught his breath. When he met her eyes, shining with mirth in the moonlight, a sudden weightless feeling struck her chest. It reminded her of just how lucky she was to have him in her life, of his uncanny ability to know exactly what to say or do to ground her back to reality-- to him. She turned her head away, suddenly embarrassed at the sensation. Judging by the speed at which Soul did the same, he must’ve felt it too. Odd, considering how they weren’t even resonating. 

Their eyes went back to the sky instead. She could practically feel his relief at her returned humour, noticed it in the way his shoulders relaxed as he returned to stargazing. Despite this, there was still an unspoken question dancing on his tongue, Soul much too sensitive to let it be said aloud. 

“Papa used to really like stars too,” she answered for him. Unlike her, he turned to watch her as she spoke.

“Back when we still had the house, he would take me out by the edge of the desert and set up this really old telescope, just the two of us. I was so small then; he had to lift me up so I could reach the eyeglass.”

Maka smiled at the memory of bouncing on the balls of her feet as he scoured the sky, impatiently waiting for him to find the next star or planet. When he finally did, he would lift her by the armpits and let her lean into the lens, careful not to jostle the orientation of the instrument. The last time they went together, a couple of weeks before the bank finally collected their home, she was able to reach it on her own if she stood on her tip-toes.

“I haven’t seen it since… since before Mama left.” She took a shaky breath before continuing, ignoring the weapon’s pitying gaze.

“Papa was good at remembering the names of the constellations but never any of the myths associated with them, so he made them up as he went along. Even though they were all fake, I loved them, believed every word of it no matter how silly they were. Imagine my surprise when I found out Ares was _not_ the God of Brushing Your Teeth and Going to Bed on Time.”

Soul chuckled at that. “Looks like your old man used to have a heart in him after all... even if he was still a chronic liar.”

“I think that was the nicest thing you’ve ever said about Papa like, ever.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Soul said with mock innocence. “I don’t have a single mean bone in my body.”

“Hmm… that may be true,” she teased. “But you _do_ have a stubborn one... and a lazy one, and a messy one, and a rude one--”

“Alright, alright. We get the picture.”

“--obnoxious, frustrating, insecure--”

“Makaaa,” he said, drawing out the last syllable in warning.

“--sarcastic, pretentious, vulgar, mo-- Soul!”

He had kicked sand onto her pajama bottoms, using his heel to dig into the grains before launching them towards her. It coated the top of her legs in fine beachy powder. When she whipped her head to glare at him, blinking away the particles that got into her eyes, he looked away innocently, unable to hide the vindictive smirk that spread across his face. She shoved him as payback, only making him laugh as he jostled.

“And immature! How could I forget immature!?” she huffed, dusting the sand from the fabric with her palms. Sure, her clothes were sandy already but it was the _principle_ of the thing. “The stuff I have to put up with, I swear.”

There was no heat in her words, only fond amusement. Soul chuckled with her before going quiet. She almost missed it when he spoke again, unsure and sotto voce;

“So why do you?”

What?

“What?”

He still wasn’t looking at her, but the grin on his face was replaced with a distant, sad smile. His fingers subconsciously played with the sand by his side.

“That was stupid, sorry,” he muttered. “Don’t worry about it.”

And just like that, he closed himself off as if the past twenty minutes together didn’t exist. It hurt a little, if she were being honest, just how easily he was able to flick that switch. She wanted to do nothing more than to push the subject, to wrench the explanation for his words syllable by syllable. She watched him idly pick up handfuls of sand, letting them slip through the gaps in between his fingers, and promised to show him the same patience he showed her.

“You’ve been acting strange recently,” she said, hoping that he could hear what was left unspoken;

_I’m worried about you. Please, talk to me._

Soul turned to look at her then. His brows furrowed in concern, though the melancholy in his expression never fully went away.

“I could say the same about you. And not just--” he made a wide sweeping motion with his arm. “-- _this.”_ When Maka didn’t respond, unprepared for the sudden role-reversal, he continued;

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you fall asleep in class before, let alone Theory. And during sparring last week you let Star get that easy sweep on you.” He hesitated before continuing, softer now. “It’s not just sleep either; I know you’ve been throwing away your lunches, and you’re still refusing to have dinner with me. You barely ate at the hotel tonight, too.”

That weightless feeling returned, though this time accompanied by pangs of guilt. She felt stupid for thinking she could’ve hidden it from _Soul_ of all people. Still, she didn’t mean to worry him, not when he had his own fair share of demons and nightmares.

“You sleep in class all the time,” she said, trying hard to keep her tone light. Soul rolled his eyes, aware of her obvious deflection but humoring her nevertheless.

“That’s because cool guys don’t need to pay attention in class when they got nerds like you to do it for them.” He smiled at her amused scoff before dropping the act. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but… I’m worried about you. What’s up, Maka?”

She drew shapeless figures in the sand with her finger. “I’ve just been nervous, I guess.”

“About Brew?”

“About _everything_.”

This was the first time she let herself say it out loud. A weight she didn’t know she was carrying was suddenly lifted. The words came out easier now that the permanent lump in her throat was gone;

“It’s just that… one day, we were just students. The most we had to worry about back then were tests and homework, and the occasional mission here and there-- just like everybody else. Then, all of a sudden Medusa appears, the Kishin is revived, and we’re not allowed to be just students anymore; we have to be fighters… no, _soldiers_. Sure, we risked our lives before this, but never like this, never with all of _humanity_ at stake.

“We’re just _kids_. The adults could barely handle a single witch, so how the hell are we supposed to go up against an entire organization and a _Kishin!?_ People are _dying_ , and they’ll keep dying if I can’t be enough. I’m not as strong as Black Star, or as resilient as Kid. I’m…” she trailed off.

“I’m scared, Soul.”

She didn’t realize she was reaching out to his soul until the feeling of his wavelength meeting hers startled her back to reality. Despite being reluctant to initiate, Soul responded to resonance faster than any weapon she knew. They sat there in silence, trying to find comfort in the familiar hum of resonance despite the fear and frustration that mingled between them. After a few minutes, the weapon began to speak;

“I’m scared, too. We all are, I think.”

 _You’re not alone_.

“When I was a kid,” he continued, “I used to get really bad stage fright, would make my fingers shake and hit all the wrong notes.” He held his hand out, palm facing downwards as if to demonstrate.

“How did you get over it?” 

“I never really did, not entirely. But my Grandmother had this saying, would pull me aside before every performance and look me straight in the eye before telling me...

“There are no such thing as wrong notes. What we think of as wrong notes are actually just notes in the wrong places. Only the ones we play afterward can help them find their way back home-- make it right. As long you do that, choose to continue after every mistake, you can be proud of your performance, regardless of how many sour keys you hit.”

When he finished his speech, Maka was left even more confused than before he started.

“What’s that supposed to mean? In case you forgot, I don’t play music, Soul.”

He shook his head. “It’s not just about music. It means that you shouldn’t let your fear stop you from trying, that you shouldn’t be scared of making mistakes because they don’t exist. Whatever happens tomorrow, whether we win or lose, the only thing we can control is how we react afterward. That’s what really matters.”

“Oh.”

The knot in her chest loosened somewhat as the words fully sunk in. When he met her gaze, she had to resist the urge to turn away from the eyes that consistently saw nothing but the best in her.

“Regardless, I think we’ll do fine.” He grinned in reassurance. “We have the most kickass meister in the world on our side, after all.”

“I’ll be sure to pass the message along to Black Star,” she joked, hoping their resonance didn’t reveal just how hard her heart was pounding in her chest.

“Oh my God, please don’t.”

Maka couldn’t help but laugh his dramatic groan. A comfortable silence washed over them once more, this time accompanied by the soft thrumming of shy fondness.

She once again wondered what it was she did to deserve him in her life.

“Thanks, Soul. For everything.”

Yet despite the breezy half-grin he gave her in response, something was still bothering her. He might’ve thought she had forgotten his words, but it’s been chewing through her thoughts like acid since he first said it.

_“So why do you?”_

It wasn’t until she noticed his fingers digging into the sand did she come up with a way to answer his question once and for all.

“Give me your hand.”

“What? Why do you need my hand?” 

Despite his confusion, he was already moving to do what she said. After turning to face her, he held out his right hand, palm side up like an offering. She took it in both of hers.

“My Mama also had a saying. She believed that the state of a person’s hands tells you everything you need to know about them; that it’s just as good, if not better, than looking into their soul.”

“Like, palm reading?”

“Not quite. It’s deeper than that.”

“Okay, now I’m interested,” he grinned. “What do my hands say, good fortune-teller?”

“Well, first and foremost,” she started, running the tips of her fingers across his palm, “you’re loyal. Your hands are big but you don’t use them to hurt because you’re not a fighter; you’re a protector.” Soul hummed in agreement-- so far so good.

She moved on to his fingers, one by one taking them in between her own index and thumb, and rubbing the length of it. They were just as unblemished as the day they first met. “That’s not all. You’re creative, too. You pretend to hate the piano but you work hard to keep your fingers in perfect condition. They can’t help but create beautiful music because they’re only translating what’s already in your soul.” 

As gently as she could, she moved to flip his hand so that his palm was facing the ground. She hoped he couldn’t feel the imperceptible shaking of her hands as she ran her fingers over the exposed ridges of his knuckles. “Somebody hurt you in the past. They couldn’t see what I see in you, made you scared to trust, to show the world how much you care.”

“Because you do care. You care so much that it terrifies you. But you do it anyway because…” She moved his hand again until it was vertical, nails pointing skyward. She presses her scarred palm against his, her fingertips just reaching the second creases of his fingers.

“You do it because you care about _me.”_

She shifted her hand slightly, enough so that she could slide her fingers in between his and wrap them around his knuckles. Almost as if on instinct, his hands returned the gesture.

She gripped too tightly and his fingers swallowed her knuckles whole. But interlaced like this, hands slotting together like two celestial puzzle pieces, the only word they could think to describe it was _home._

His eyes, shining with unshed tears, were fixated on their conjoined hands. When he finally looked up and met hers, he startled. She didn’t need resonance to feel the rising flustered panic begin to overwhelm him.

“O-oh. You’re, um. You’re pretty great, too,” he stammered, pink beginning to dust the tips of his ears and cheeks. 

Maka laughed, certain that the heat in her face mirrored Soul’s deep blush. The sound was all it took to get him to relax. They let their hands drop, link never threatening to break.

“She’d be proud of you,” he said.

“You think so?”

“I know so.” He hesitated. “And if it means anything, I am too.”

“Of course it means something, dummy.”

_If only he could know just how much it meant to her; that his pride meant more than Mama’s and Papa’s combined._

He grinned dopily at the insult before leaning back until his head touched the sand. She had little choice but to follow close behind. The two teenagers laid side-by-side, hand-in-hand, and watched the Alaskan sky shimmer and the stars waltz above.

“For the record, I care about you too,” whispered Maka.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

_More than you could ever know._

She sighed, watching her breath mingle and disappear into the night above. “It’s nice out here.”

“Almost as if we could stay here forever,” Soul said.

“We should go back in and try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah.”

Neither one of them made to move. Minutes passed as they watched the uncaring sky, Polaris winking in a promise to keep their secret. There was no noise aside from the rhythm of the tide. _In and out. In and out._

“Hey, Maka?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad we met.”

The tenderness in their resonance didn’t scare her anymore. What was once an overwhelming flame became the embrace of a familiar, comforting heat, like a well-loved jacket or security blanket.

“Me too.”

;

Kid was the one that found them in the morning, sun just beginning to peek out from behind the horizon. Their breaths were deep and even with sleep, their fingers still interlinked. The Alaskan chill would’ve half-frozen them to death if they hadn't been curled up against one another, the warmth of their tangled limbs and resonance protecting the other from harm.

* * *

Witch Hunter was familiar. It felt like trust, like an unshakable oath that grew stronger with every trial and tribulation. It was the familiar grip of gloved hands on metal; the gentle caress of fingertips brushing skin as they wrapped bandages; the swapping of bittersweet stories on plane trips about a childhood long gone. It was promises made in dusty music rooms, remnants of a sorrowful solo permeating the air as two hands made contact for the first time.

The technique they performed within the tempest was different, fueled by the discordant sound of Soul’s inner music. It almost felt like Witch Hunter, except the resonance behind it was focused on a fixed point. Somewhere between her soul and his, their wavelengths merged into a single entity, refining their trust into something so much more intimate.

It was the taste of homemade birthday cake, sweet and smokey where the edges burned black in the oven.

It was the sound of slow jazz and laughter, the dancing and twirling around a living room turned ballroom.

It was late nights turning into early mornings after every nightmare, gentle words and soft touches leading the other back, piece by piece.

It was waking up to the sound of crashing waves in the safety of each other’s arms; the peppering of sand on hair and clothes; the gentle, vulnerable glances shared in the privacy of an embrace, ephemeral moments of tenderness that meant everything, and nothing. 

The blade of Genie Hunter sliced through Mosquito effortlessly, humming with the quiet ferocity of a love left unspoken but obvious all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghost Stories is a song by The Narcissist Cookbook.
> 
>  **NOTE ABOUT FINAL UPDATE:** This work is going to go on a brief one/two month hiatus. Thank you so much for your continued patience and readership up until now, and happy holidays! :^)
> 
> It’s actually incredibly unclear which myth or where the name Cynosura originated from. Ursa Minor/Major is much simpler to explain; Maka references the interpretation based off the myth of Callisto.
> 
> The ‘No wrong notes’ bit Grandma Evans says is a very blatant rip off of the famous Miles Davis quotes: “There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.” and “It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.”
> 
> Music HCs:  
> While this interlude had been planned from the start, it ended up going through some massive narrative changes! It was Ghost Stories (chapter title) and Ella Fitzgerald’s performance of the jazz standard ‘Misty’ that first really solidified the outline/overall direction this went. Therefore, the song Soul uses to ground himself/hums on the beach is Misty.


	5. All the Words We Spared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It almost felt like they were freshmen again, poking and prodding at each other’s boundaries to see what made them tick, except this was a line that was never supposed to have even existed, let alone be erased and crossed. Most weapon/meister pairs would have considered this level of intimacy a blessing, but as the pile of unspoken confessions between them continued to grow and molder, Maka couldn’t see it as anything other than a cruel twist of fate. This was the price to pay for tapping into a power neither of them was fully prepared for; this was Genie Hunter’s curse.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: Brief non-graphic references to child abuse (Soul parents); brief references to the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and/or trauma (Soul and Maka)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that awkward stage of romance where you both know how the other feels but never officially vocalize it so you kinda have to pretend all the flirting is friendly just in case even though you both know it’s not. That’s SoMa but instead of a month it lasts 3 years and instead of flirting its extremely intense vows of loyalty and sacrifice.
> 
> Apologies for the delay! In addition to this chapter just being difficult for me to write, having the most deleted and reworked scenes, I very ironically got some gnarly hand wounds that made typing a little difficult, ahaha. You also might’ve noticed that the chapter count went up; the final scene was originally going to be included in this chapter, but this one was getting way too long and I wanted to take more time with the big finale…! Thank you so much for your patience!

_Maka woke to sand tickling her eyelashes and a soul that wasn’t her own nesting in her soul space. A haunting melody played its final notes as the sound of crashing waves gradually replaced it, each kiss between the shore and sea bringing her closer to the waking world. Puffs of air danced underneath her chin, hot and steady as a metronome. Soul’s head was buried in the crook of her neck. He had one arm wrapped protectively around her shoulder while the other was lost somewhere between their torsos, connected to hers by interlocking fingers._

_She felt another nudge against her ankle, too firm to be from the sleeping boy. Irritation shot through her on instinct, causing Soul to stir as she looked up to glare at the intruder. Her eyes widened when they registered Kid towering above them, still dressed in his sleeping clothes and somehow immaculate despite the surrounding beach. Enshadowed by the sun rising behind him, irises flashing gold, he looked more like a god than ever before._

_Other than a slightly raised eyebrow, he showed signs of surprise at their intimate position. He mostly looked exhausted, pale skin accentuating the gauntness of his face as he held a finger up to his lips with one hand, and five on the other._

_Five minutes._

_And with nothing else left to ‘say,’ he turned and walked back towards the hotel, leaving the two partners once again alone in the sand’s gentle embrace. Maka waited until the sound of footsteps disappeared before returning her attention to the figure nestled against her._

_Soul was sleeping deeply, something that had become increasingly infrequent after the madness entered his blood and even more so upon the Kishin’s revival. The faux fur on the collar of her coat stuck to his cheek, camouflaging his own soft tufts in a white polyfiber forest. His mouth was slack, and the anxious rivers of wrinkles that now permanently lined his waking brow were absent, soothed by rare serenity._

_Maka wanted nothing more than to immortalize that peaceful expression, to keep him in her arms and protect him from the horror that pervaded their lives the same way he shielded her from swiping claws and gnashing fangs. But the longer she was awake, the more aware she became of the battle that loomed on the horizon, and, begrudgingly, she shook the weapon awake._

_The rhythm of his chest faltered when it fell from the cadence of sleep, returning with more purpose as his muscles tensed in preparation for the new day. He awoke slowly, piece by piece, so unlike the violent jolting that normally tore him back into reality. It was only after the rest of his body had stirred into consciousness did his eyes flutter open. They widened when he registered the absence of scratchy hotel bedsheets, gradually gaining clarity as they scanned the scene until scarlet finally found meadow green._

_The number of things left unsaid between them could fill a library, entire tomes that needed to be read aloud and heard in order to reveal what this meant-- what they were. But as the moon continued to fall, counting down the seconds until their inevitable return to the battlefield, the time for talking disappeared with it. The most they could do was nod while holding their gaze, clutching the other imperceptibly tighter in their arms as they did so._

_“Soon,” the act said. “Soon, but not yet.”_

_So when he opened his mouth to speak, it wasn’t to spill the emotions that he so desperately wanted to say, that she equally wanted to hear and respond to. He spoke casually, as if they couldn’t feel the nervous hammering of the other’s heart pressed against their chests:_

_“I think I drooled on you.”_

_His eyes crinkled with laughter as Maka pushed him off in exaggerated disgust, rolling onto his back before splaying out his limbs starfish-like. She wasn’t actually upset, her clothes stained with blood and pre-kishin saliva more often than not, but it gave her an excuse to quickly sever their contact before she lost the will to do so entirely. It was only after they parted did she notice the chill in the surrounding air, attacking with a sudden vengeance now that she was unguarded by the warmth of the weapon._

_The pair got up quickly after that, eager to return to shelter and escape the frigid seabreeze pecking at their skin. But even as they uselessly dusted the sand off themselves, neither of them could ignore the shared giddiness that bubbled in their chests, immature and awkward, yet oddly intoxicating._

_When Maka suggested a race to decide who would get the first shower, Soul didn’t respond. The only warning she got was the smallest quirk of his lips before he took off, kicking sand onto her pants as his feet struggled for traction. The meister shot after him, accusations of cheating drowned out by his echoing laughter, bassy melody replacing the symphony of the waves as they got further from the shore._

_Perhaps in a different life, she would have suggested that they wash the sand off in the ocean, splashing sea salt at each other before basking in the sun like carefree lizards, clothes heavy and wet on their shoulders, talking and talking until its descent painted the horizon sherbert and their skin sunburnt pink._

_But they had a boat to catch and a Magic Tool to recover._

_They had a war to win._

_Maka passed him easily, of course. She ran until the distance between them was so large that she hardly heard his pattering footsteps slow to a crawl behind her. She purposefully did the same, waiting for him to catch up. Despite their heaving chests and sweaty brows, they boasted a matching pair of wide grins. They fell into step with each other out of habit, side-by-side and competition forgotten, shoulders a little closer than was really necessary._

_She knew that they had to talk about it eventually, but for now, marching back towards their routine of violence and death with hope in their steps, the only thing Maka could think was:_

_Not yet._

_The back of her fingers brushed against his as they walked the last leg back to the hotel, a silent promise that once they made it out of Lost Island, she would tell him just how much she loved him too, taking as much time as she needed to ease any doubt from her troubled Soul._

* * *

Miraculously, every single student who enlisted in the Battle for Brew returned beaten but alive. They sagged with the weight of defeat, the loss of the tool more agonizing than the injuries that they had sustained, cracked ribs and internal bleeding frivolous compared to the chaste kiss of humiliation.

Something had changed within those that entered the tempest. Nobody could pinpoint exactly what it was. It was subtle yet drastic, made them seem older, tougher. It was as if a single cog in a massive machine had been replaced after decades of wear, allowing it to run with a newfound lethal efficiency. Even as they limped down the halls of the academy, licking their wounds while restlessly waiting for Arachne’s next move, their eyes remained hard, their edges sharp.

They began to see less and less of one another. Black Star, who was never the aptest student to begin with, disappeared from the classroom entirely, found only at the end of the day sporting fresh bruises and cuts from schoolyard brawls. Kid was swallowed by the maws of distrust, spending every waking hour investigating the innards of the school while avoiding as many eyes as he possibly could. The weapons they left behind could do little except remain steadfast upon their return, all the while observing the remaining weapon/meister pair with stares that ranged from extremely amused to downright worried.

Soul and Maka were different. Unlike the other partners, they stubbornly remained by each other’s side; whether that was a good decision, however, was an entirely separate conversation. Their relationship became taught with a sudden awkwardness, so tense that one could mistake them as newly partnered freshmen rather than veterans battle-hardened by years of bloodshed. The edges of teasing became dull with uncertainty, moments of casual contact hesitant and rare. When their fingertips touched while passing pencils or books, they both flinched away as if the other’s flesh were made of acid, apologies stuttering out in between flushed cheeks.

Neither of them acknowledged the beach, or the not-secret secrets that Genie Hunter had ripped from their souls and laid bare. They forced themselves into old routines as the weight of the unspoken words increased with each passing day, steadily suffocating them. The partners dodged their feelings like two clumsy fighter jets, swooping and diving just close enough to graze before violently pulling apart, locked in an eternal waltz of lethal near-misses, waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for the perfect opportunity to strike.

* * *

Weekends, like many other things in Soul’s life, lost their meaning once the Kishin was revived. Summons to the Death Room were frequent and unpredictable, uncaring of the day of the week or the time of day. Afternoons at the mall with friends transformed into impromptu strategy meetings, long hours of arguing in food courts that left him irritable and Maka upset. Movie marathons were cut short due to weekend trainings that began at the crack of dawn. When they finally returned home, sun setting far beyond the horizon, the DVD player was left abandoned, beds enticing the exhausted teens with false promises of sleep. Soul still didn’t know if Woody and Buzz ever reunited with Andy.

On the very rare days that they did have to themselves, the two were perfectly content to spend it indoors and allow their aching souls to recover. He knew it was one of those days when the afternoon sunlight tickled his eyes and woke him rather than Maka’s usual shoving and howling. Tight in his arms was Mr. Jaws, a plush shark she had once bought him at the Tennessee aquarium, grinning as if it had been the one that staved the nightmares away for the night.

Soul blinked away the remnants of sleep before blearily glancing at the clock: 1:54 PM. By the time he stumbled out the door, barely remembering to throw on a probably clean pair of shorts, it was well past 2.

Predictably, his partner was already awake. She was laying on the couch where he knew the afternoon reading light just right, favorite novel propped on her stomach. One hand thumbed the worn pages while the other cushioned her head, hair spilling over the edge of the cushions like a tawny waterfall. Her mouth moved slightly as she read, and he wondered just how many times her lips had ghosted those same words in that same order, if they had memorized them the same way her heart had long ago. The scene made his chest ache with sudden nostalgia. His legs locked in the hallway, hesitant to disrupt the peaceful portrait that he so desperately wanted to protect, as if the moment he crossed the threshold the illusion would shatter and reveal red-black tiles and velvet curtains.

Sensing his presence, she looked up from her book to greet him. Even from here he could see how tired she was, knew it by the way her eyes slid closed and smile slanted slightly to one side. It was an invitation, he realized, one he didn’t know he had been waiting for until the tightness eased and gave him the courage to enter.

Acting more on muscle memory than any real desire for entertainment, he made for the TV and turned on the one video game console they shared-- a Wii that he had begged Maka to combine their money to buy during their very first month living together, now covered in a thin coat of dust. Soul settled onto his usual spot on the floor, leaning his back against the front of the sofa, hair gently brushing against her side. He muted the volume as the start-up jingle started as to not disrupt her reading, and for the next half hour, the apartment was silent save for the clicking of buttons and the flipping of paper. 

This was a scene they had performed thousands of times before, but, like everything else about them since Alaska, it felt off. The script between them had been altered and neither of them knew how. As always, Maka would eventually get distracted by his game and put down her book. And as always, he would whine about her backseat gaming before grabbing the second controller and teaching her how to play co-op, now careful to avoid touching her hands while pointing at the buttons. Going through the motions didn’t relieve the sense of wrongness, but it was familiar, comforting. Even if the actors hadn’t rehearsed their lines, the show must go on.

They were both on the couch now, Maka’s novel forgotten and balanced on its arm. Her eyes had the same emerald spark they did whenever she was presented with a new challenge, bright and wide, intensely focused on the screen in front of her. She picked up the controls quickly, and before long they were traversing the level together, respective characters bouncing on enemies and gathering coins. Despite the space between them, she unknowingly leaned her body with the character as she played, bumping into his arms and shoulders on accident. Each time it happened, his traitorous heart skipped like a scratched record.

“Hey, Soul?”

He grabbed a power-up before absently responding. “What’s up?” Then, “Watch out for that pit.”

Her character jumped over it easily. She hesitated, though unlike him, it wasn’t because of the game. “Can I ask you a question?”

His grunt of affirmation was all the encouragement she needed. He killed an enemy with a well-timed stomp.

“Can you tell me what my soul sounds like?” 

It took him a moment to register the question, ungracefully tearing him back into reality when he did. On screen, his character fell into spikes and cried for help.

“What?”

She put down her controller after he did, immersion lost by her own train of thought. “My soul,” she repeated innocently. “What does it sound like? You said you feel souls through my perception with sound, right? Like little songs?”

“Er, yeah. I did.” On the boat back from Lost Island, to be exact, though he didn’t think she was actually listening. Hell, he barely remembered what he had said, only rambling to distract her from falling unconscious before they reached the paramedics waiting at the shore. 

“Well?” she said, and there was that excited spark in her eyes again, the one he couldn’t deny even if he wanted to, curious and intense and _expectant_. “Is it high? Low? Loud? Quiet?” A gasp. “I bet it sounds like that annoying cell phone ringtone that keeps getting stuck in my head. Oh God, no wonder you’re always so cranky after chain resonance.”

Soul couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden onslaught of questions; this was obviously something she had been thinking about for a while. “Slow down there, bookworm. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

He took a moment to pause the game while she settled into a more comfortable position, visibly pleased at his acquiescence. While she didn’t have a notepad on hand, he knew that every word he said would be eventually abridged and recorded, Maka never one to waste an opportunity for learning.

_God, what a nerd._

“It’s true that each soul has a certain range and dynamic it likes to stay within,” he started, professor-like, “but there’s also a bunch of other things that make each soul distinct. The most obvious is instrumentation, but there’s also key signatures, and time signatures, and tempo, and note intervals, and chord progressions, and a whole bunch of other shit. It’s not really that exact, it’s more of a _feeling_ rather than...” He trailed off when he noticed the lost expression on Maka’s face. “...you’re not getting any of this, are you?”

If her reddening cheeks didn’t betray her ignorance, the harsh tone that she used did. “I would if you weren’t being so pretentious!” she spat, jostling him. “Stop using big music terms on purpose, you jerk!”

He laughed. “Sorry, sorry. It’s not often that I’m the one tutoring you. How do I explain…” He drummed his fingers in thought, imaging the noise he heard during chain resonance and meticulously separating each melody in his head. “When you see Black Star’s soul, what do you see?” She looked surprised at the sudden question but didn’t hesitate to answer.

“It’s big _,_ obviously,” she said. “It’s pretty much impossible not to notice. And there are these really weird spikes that stick out everywhere, almost like even his own soul can’t contain his energy. This makes it really hard for people to resonate with him, but it also makes him stand out. Oh, and its color is baby blue, which my perception tells me means… youthful.”

Soul snorted. “You mean immature.” When she only hummed innocently at his response, he continued.

“When I hear Black Star’s soul, I get all the same information. He’s loud and self-centered. Even when he’s resonating with everybody, his soul cuts through all the other sounds like it’s not even there. In other words, he’s a soloist. And since he’s stupidly optimistic, the melody of his soul tends to stay in the major key, E flat, to be exact--”

Maka’s face brightened in realization. “And since he’s so energetic, the speed— no, tempo— must be fast, right?”

“Ding ding! Ten points for Albarn!” He smiled at her resulting blush before continuing. “The sound of his soul is loud and brassy like a trumpet or bugle, making the music of his soul actually a _fanfare_ . So in order to resonate with him, Tsubaki has to harmonize with _his_ melody, which pretty much means he plays the leading part while she supports him with her own soul.”

Maka nodded in understanding. “Does this mean souls that sound the same resonate better?”

“Not necessarily. In fact, I think the strongest resonance can only be made with a wide variety of sounds. Think of a rock band: there’s a drummer, a guitarist, a bass player, and a vocalist. All of them are different, but each has an important part to play. If you take away one of them, or if one of them is out of time or tune, the whole thing would fall apart.”

“So like chain resonance?” she asked.

“Exactly,” he said, nodding. “When souls resonate, they change to match their partners, right? It’s the same way in real life, too. Playing in an ensemble is all about compromise and flexibility, harmony and melody, using your own sound to bring out the best in your partner. And like resonance, the music they make together will always be something only they can create. One-of-a-kind.”

He couldn’t stop the soft fondness from slipping into his tone as he finished the lecture, subconsciously thinking of their own music as he spoke. Judging by the small smile ghosting her lips, Maka caught it as well.

“Sounds like you had a lot of experience.” They both knew it wasn’t resonance she was talking about. 

“Er… not really,” he laughed bashfully. Her eyes widened in surprise, though he wasn’t sure if it was due to his easy admission or willingness to talk about his past.

“Nobody could stand playing with me,” he elaborated. “I rarely passed any auditions, and when I did I usually got kicked out the ensemble for one reason or another.” Most of them were purposeful, of course, but he had a feeling she guessed that already.

“The only person that could tolerate me was Wes, and even _he_ looked like I was one sarcastic comment away from strangling me half the time. Believe it or not, people thought I was too... _difficult_ to work with.”

_They couldn’t see what I see in you._

The Maka in the present made a noise halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “I can hardly imagine.”

“Wow, rude,” he huffed in mock offense. “Everybody knows I do my best work solo, anyway.”

“Used to, you mean.”

Her bony elbow dug into his side the same way it did while they were playing the game, suggesting perhaps the previous moments of contact weren’t as accidental as he had initially thought. Soul swallowed the lump in his throat before responding, coating the back of his mouth with the taste of hope and sea salt. 

“Yeah, whatever. Helps that my duet partner is just as big a pain in the ass as I am.” If he focused hard enough, he could almost hear the low strums of her soul lift her bright peals of laughter.

“You must get sick and tired of hearing your own soul all the time then,” she said. “Like a song you can never ever get out of your head.”

“I can’t actually hear my own soul without resonance, the same way you can’t really see yours.” He chuckled at her disappointed pout. “To be honest, I don’t really care what my soul by itself sounds like.”

“Aren’t you at least a _little_ curious?”

Images of unlovable music created by unlovable hands flashed through his mind. He clasped his hands to still the nervous fidgeting of his fingers, protecting them from bruising that was never going to come.

“It probably sounds a lot better resonating with yours anyway.” He must have imagined Maka’s hand subtly twitching towards his before freezing, moving instead to worry the hem of her shirt as she thought of a response.

“Do you like how it sounds?” She spoke delicately, as if his answer would be the most valuable thing on the planet. “The music we make together?”

It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. It put to shame the lilting sonatas that Wes played, or the booming arias his father sang. If she only knew how many hours he had spent trying to capture the sound, pencil shakily hovering over blank sheet music for the first time since he had shed the name Evans. But like a dream upon waking, the more he tried to remember it, the faster and farther it slipped away, ghosting his fingertips as it escaped his grasp again, and again, and again.

He could tell her, and maybe they could spend the rest of the weekend figuring it out together, plotting out the notes and polyrhythms that would slowly reveal to her just how much he loved her too. But the stage wasn’t set yet, the performers unprepared and exhausted. As he looked at the girl with a flame in her heart and the world on her shoulders, the only thing he could think was:

_Not yet._

“A lot better than your taste in music, at least.” His words tasted cowardly on his tongue. When she playfully punched his arm and called him a jerk, he pretended not to see the flash of disappointment in her eyes.

Maka suggested they return to the video game shortly after, and if she noticed Soul agree perhaps a touch too eagerly, she didn’t make it known. Regardless, the air between them was lighter, the script slightly more familiar. When she shoved him after accidentally killing her character, he shoved her back just as hard. When his fingers instinctively wrapped around hers as he showed her how to hold the controller, she didn’t push him away. It was only after they stopped to order a pizza, sunset dying the surrounding air a gentle peach, did Soul finally realize that he never got around to answering her initial question.

* * *

_The Lunar Cycles of this month will work against you to fill your mind with doubts, Taurus. External stressors will wear at your confidence, and the things you thought you knew will be reaffirmed in ways you’ve never imagined, creating tension in your life. The knowledge is scary, but it’s vital that you don’t turn away from it. Remain headstrong and let the stars run their course, Taurus. Trust your instincts, and take chances-- the end result may surprise you!_

_For more information on romance between the Zodiac Signs, see pg. 17 for the Compatibility chart of March 2008._

“What a load of garbage.”

Maka idly flipped through the pages of the discount astrology magazine, glazed eyes barely registering the printed words in front of her. She had found it crumpled between the couch cushions while fishing for the TV remote, a welcome surprise considering the other type of magazines Blair tended to buy and lose. Against her better judgment, she opened the cover, theorizing that reading garbage would be at least slightly more entertaining than watching it. The result of her hypothesis was still inconclusive, though she knew for a fact that she was losing the same amount of brain cells either way. 

Sure, the horoscope was scarily accurate. But a stopped clock is wrong twice a day, and she didn’t need ‘the stars’ (most likely some poor undergraduate intern at some half-bankrupt tabloid company) to tell her that whatever was going on between her and Soul was the result of something much greater than typical weapon/meister drama.

The thought of her partner made her heart skip a beat, hands further wrinkling the pages as they clenched involuntarily. They still hadn’t talked about what happened on the beach, or the emotions that had bubbled to the surface during the Battle for Brew. It’d been almost a month since then, and the initial awkwardness had turned into an anxious kind of resignation. The memories of Alaska wouldn’t disappear if they kept avoiding it, but they continued to pretend that it would anyway, ignoring the blood that pooled in their mouths after Genie Hunter had ripped the confessions out from them like baby teeth. 

It almost felt like they were freshmen again, poking and prodding at each other’s boundaries to see what made them tick, except this was a line that was never supposed to have even existed, let alone be erased and crossed. Most weapon/meister pairs would have considered this level of intimacy a blessing, but as the pile of unspoken confessions between them continued to grow and molder, Maka couldn’t see it as anything other than a cruel twist of fate. This was the price to pay for tapping into a power neither of them was fully prepared for; this was Genie Hunter’s curse.

And yet…

_The only thing we can control is how we react afterward. That’s what really matters._

Her traitorous fingers began to flip to page 17 before she could think better of it. She had only just read the header when the sound of muffled cursing and keys being clumsily slid into the front door lock stole her attention. Soul stumbled into the apartment, arms and shoulders struggling with bloated grocery bags like an overdecorated Christmas tree. The door behind him slammed shut as Maka crossed the room to help him, easily relieving him of some of the plastic burdens.

“Christ, Maka,” he groaned. “What the hell was up with the shopping list this week? I’ve never even heard of half this stuff.” He dropped the bags onto the kitchen counter, each landing with a satisfying thud. “And who the hell buys cream cheese without bagels? The cashier was looking at me like I was going to eat it straight out of the tub or something.”

She rolled her eyes, dropping her own bags on the counter before pawing through the contents: flour, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, buttermilk. 

“You’re too self-conscious,” she said after triple checking the rest of the ingredients. Despite all his griping, Soul had gotten everything she had asked for. “And to answer your question, I wanted to bake a cake.”

“I figured it was something like that…” he stretched his aching muscles before startling. “Oh shit, this isn’t like some passive-aggressive jab at me for forgetting something, is it?” His legs began to pace as he mumbled to himself. “Our partner anniversary isn’t until August... my birthday was last month, and you’re a Taurus so yours isn’t until--”

The name of her star sign caught her attention. She hardly remembered it, so why would he know something as benign as that? 

“Hold on,” she interrupted, causing him to freeze like a criminal caught. “Is that yours?” She pointed at the magazine she had carelessly thrown onto the kitchen table. To her horror, his eyes lit up in recognition.

“Hey, I was looking for that!” He abandoned the groceries for the magazine, flipping through its contents with significantly more attention than she had been. “Who else would it have belonged to?”

“I thought it was Blair’s!”

The weapon laughed. “The only type of magazine Blair brings home is--”

“I know, I know!” she half-yelled, flustered at the mental images she had been trying to avoid. He only laughed harder at her embarrassment. “Please don’t tell me you actually believe in that garbage.”

“Of course I don’t,” he scoffed. The steadily rising blush at her unconvinced expression proved otherwise. “Look, it’s just a stupid hobby Liz roped me into, okay?” he said defensively. “Plus, with _you_ as my partner, I need all the luck I can get.”

She ignored the underhanded insult. “You know the only people who actually read their horoscopes are like, eighty-year-old women, right?”

Soul chuckled good-naturedly, hunching over and cupping a hand to his ear in an exaggerated motion. “I’m sorry,” he said in a raspy voice. “Can you speak up, dearie? You know my hearing just isn’t what it used to be.”

“God, you’re absolutely insufferable.” Despite her tone, she couldn’t hide the ridiculous grin that spread across her face and colored her timbre.

“What was that? No, I don’t think I’m in a submarine.”

Maka continued to take stock of her ingredients, meticulously laying them out on the counter while Soul indulged in his (objectively uncool) pseudoscience. To her annoyance, he kept glancing up from the magazine and looking at her curiously before returning to it, though whether he was only doing it to tease her, she wasn’t sure. Even though she knew it was fake, she couldn’t help but feel exposed, almost as if he had stolen her perception and was using it to peel back the layers of her soul. So, this was what it felt like.

“So?” he eventually drawled, tossing the magazine onto the kitchen island and leaning over her shoulder. He rolled his eyes when she looked at him dumbly in confusion. “The cake?"

Oh, right. She paused, thumbing the tub of butter in her hands. “It’s sort of dumb,” she mumbled. 

When he only cocked his head at her, as if to say _so ‘what if it is?_ ,’ she continued. “It’s just… we’ve been through so much lately. I thought maybe we deserved something small as a reward.”

It seemed so juvenile once she said it out loud, as if the literal apocalypse would take a time-out just because a pair of teenagers wanted to eat dessert. The expression on Soul’s face was hard to read, but there was no mockery behind it.

“So, kind of like a ‘the-world-sucks-ass-but-we-survived-anyway’ cake?” he asked.

The warmth of embarrassment ebbed from her body as she laughed. “Pretty much.”

His grin was wide and gummy pink at the edges. “Yeah, okay. I can get behind that.” Then, softer, more to himself than to her; “As long as you’re eating, right?”

To her surprise, Soul didn’t leave the kitchen, instead opening one of the drawers and pulling out a rolled-up apron. It was a garish thing, the words _KILL THE COOK_ emblazoned across the chest above a flaming skull and crossbones, cream fabric scarred by years of clumsy food stains and accidental charring.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he slung it over his neck. He looked at her as if she’d just asked him what the color of Black Star’s hair was.

“What’s it look like, stupid? I’m helping.”

The simple admission made her soul ache with a familiar cocktail of melancholy and yearning. Cooking together, like sharing clothes or wrapping wounds, became one of those small things that Genie Hunter had polluted, making uncomfortably evident the underlying emotions that went unnoticed before. Judging by the faint pink now dusting his cheeks, he felt it as well-- the accumulation of years of instinctual domestic affection-- yet he remained steadfast in his resolve to help. 

_You care so much that it terrifies you._

He’d always been the braver one out of the two of them.

While the meister had never baked anything that didn’t come in a box, she had more experience than Soul, who apparently once almost burned down the Evans estate trying to make a surprise cake for his brother’s ninth birthday. They agreed to let her handle preheating the oven while he plugged the CD player into the dining area. As they talked through the printed recipe together, their voices mingled with the brilliant piano duet that filled the apartment, two different pairs of partners meeting as one. Maka feigned ignorance when he pointed out that they were making his favorite type of cake.

It wasn’t long before the percussive sounds of cracking eggs and spoons hitting plastic mixing bowls joined their symphony, Maka handling the red velvet batter while Soul the cream cheese frosting. They talked about mundane things as they whisked: _did you study for that test yet?; have you heard from Kid lately?; did Liz really say that?; Black Star did what!?._ It wasn’t the conversation they needed to have, but it was easy, familiar-- safe. Piano lullabies filled the gaps in between the words like caulk, ensuring that there never was a second of silence between the two.

After a quick glance at the recipe, Maka pushed past the weapon to open the refrigerator and grab the half-empty carton of milk. When she turned back around, he had his fingers inside _her_ bowl, scraping the sides before popping them in his mouth, caught quite literally red-handed.

“Soul!” she shouted, lightly batting his hand away with the spoon. “That’s disgusting! Don’t you know how many people die from Salmonella?!” 

His resounding laugh was as sweet as the batter that now coated his knuckles. Neither of them acknowledged the flinch that he had failed to suppress when wood met flesh.

“Please, Maka,” he said, rolling his eyes. “We literally fight the manifestations of humanity’s darkest evils for extra credit; a little raw egg isn’t going to kill us.” He lifted his hand to lick the batter from it before freezing halfway, tongue retreating behind a toothy grin. “Look, I’ll even show you.”

He moved to rub his hand on her cheek with a speed she never once saw during training. She twisted away on instinct, causing his fingers to just brush her skin before becoming deeply ensnared in her hair. The frosting, cold and sticky with sugar, clumped the long strands together better than the gel that currently held up Soul’s.

“Oops. My bad,” he said unapologetically, freeing his hand with some effort. “But hey, look!” He pointed at his own head of spikes. “Matchy matchy!” 

His wide smile fell when he registered the fierce expression on her face, the last thing many a pre-kishin saw before meeting a quick and painful end.

“Uh oh.”

With swiftness forged by years of monster hunting, Maka scooped a spoonful of the batter and launched it at the weapon. It cut through the air like a fat bullet and splattered onto his chest in a bloody red bloom. He looked down at the stain before looking back up at her, eyes wide and incredulous, face decorated with stray streaks of egg and food coloring.

“Matchy matchy,” she mocked.

Not even Death himself could have stopped the hell that broke loose after that.

They scrambled for their respective bowls and cradled them in their arms, harmless mixtures transforming into the deadliest ammo in their clutches. Handfuls and spoonfuls of sweets flew and burst like shrapnel upon impact, walls and floors repainted in a violent Pollock-esque imitation. Frosting stuck to Maka’s skin and clothes while Soul became soaked in batter, fat globs of scarlet bleeding onto the linoleum as he darted around the kitchen. The two children danced in and out of each other’s range, each slippery step grossly out of time with the pianos that scored their battle, each echoing laugh and jeer beautifully out of pitch.

The other ingredients weren’t spared, joining the fray once their mixing bowls were scraped clean. Butter was smeared onto skin while a blizzard of salt, sugar, and flour coated the kitchen in a thick layer of white. Maka got a hold of the eggs first, hurling them at the weapon in quick succession. Each one exploded with a satisfying _crack!_ when they met the flat of his blade, Soul having transformed his arm and hiding behind it like the coward he was. He lowered it to stick his tongue out at the meister, only to be punished with a faceful of thrown flour. As he sputtered and spat the powder from his mouth, she took the opportunity to grab the baking tray and use it as her own shield, deflecting his counterattacks with much more elegance.

God only knows how long they would’ve continued if Soul hadn’t slipped on a conveniently spilled puddle of milk. He detransformed as he fell, arms scrambling wildly for purchase on the nearest solid surface-- which ended up being Maka herself.

The two landed with a deafening thud, a mushroom cloud of spilled flour and sugar billowing around them as they did. The air was knocked out of her lungs as her back slammed into the floor. She had shifted as she landed, barely avoiding smashing her skull on the tile through sheer combat instinct and luck. The familiar ache of a blossoming bruise began somewhere along her spine, but otherwise, she was unharmed. When her senses finally recalibrated themselves, the first thing they noticed was the pressure of a boy-shaped weight resting on her chest. The second thing she noticed was the heat.

He was always so warm.

By the time he had recovered, the last of the sugary dust had already settled, delicately decorating his batter-dyed hair with miniature galaxies. Maka was struck with a jagged pang of deja vu as she watched him stir. Their eyes met, and she had opened her mouth to speak before Soul was struck with an expression of pure panic. She swallowed her disappointment as he hastily scrambled off her body and sat up, leaving behind a chill colder than the northern sea breeze. She knew what was coming next, and tried to prepare herself for his averted gaze, the stammered apologies that neither of them wanted to say or accept, the aching minutes of quiet that would follow.

“Holy fuck, are you okay?”

His face poked into her line of sight above her. What she had initially interpreted as fear was actually worry, familiar lines of concern visible on his brow despite the batter that painted them. He hovered over her still prone body, arms fluttering around her nervously as he debated whether or not he was allowed to initiate contact.

Maka prayed that the ingredients dirtying her own face hid the rising blush on it. “I’m fine, Soul.”

There was a tightness in her tone that she hadn’t intended to voice. He mistakenly took it as a sign of injury, only becoming more anxious as she propped herself up to sitting. 

“Did you hit your head?” he said, running his fingers through his matted hair. “Shit, you just recovered from that concussion too. What was I thinking, God, I’m such a--.”

Her first instinct was to laugh, to tease him about his overprotective mother henning until his anxious words died behind an awkward, appeased smile. She wasn’t sure what compelled her to grab his hands instead, stilling their fidgeting with her own stout resolution.

“Soul, I promise you. I’m okay.”

Maka watched guilty scarlet soften in relief as the tightness in her own chest eased. The two teens watched each other carefully for a few seconds, then, as if they had been waiting for the other’s quiet approval the entire time, burst out into brilliant, wheezing laughter.

“You should see your face--”

“God, your hair--”

“--looks worse than when you asked Black Star to do your homecoming make-up for you—”

“--a cross between Papa and a wet dog--”

“—who knew egg yolk isn’t your color—“

“You look like pure shit--”

“Yeah!? Well, you look like--”

They weren’t resonating, but she knew he felt it just as strong as she did: the tender giddiness that greeted their awakening in Alaska, the warmth of contact and affection from their joined hands, their souls soaring with the valuable reassurance that they were loved. And when they finally caught their breaths from laughing and teasing, the flour and salt and sugar underneath them became pure white sand, and they had just woken in each other's arms, confessions that were already known bubbling in their souls and waiting to be said aloud.

_Trust your instincts and take chances-- the end result may surprise you!_

Maka finally had her chance, and she was going to take it.

“Soul, we need to talk--” she started at the same time he said, “Maka, I need to tell you--”

A piercing _ding!_ from behind interrupted the both of them. The words she had prepared froze at the sound, tripping back into her throat and crystalizing into a hard lump. The sound reverberated throughout the apartment like a clocktower striking midnight, each echo draining her of her confidence and pulling them back into the false reality that they crafted.

 _“Not yet_ ,” it taunted in the silence. _“Not yet, not yet, not yet.”_

Silence engulfed the room, neither of them moving as if they could salvage the moment by remaining still.

“Was that the oven?” he asked hesitantly.

Maka nodded, afraid to speak more than she had to in case the words decided to rush back out anyway, broken and half-formed.

“Pre-heated,” she croaked.

And as easily as that, the spell was broken. The plush dunes of sand transformed back into hard tile and grout. The syrupy, unclean feeling she had been able to ignore overwhelmed her senses. She wasn’t sure who broke away first, only that their sugar-sticky hands struggled to peel away from each other, as reluctant to break contact as she was.

“I should probably get cleaned up.” His voice was distant and muffled against the roaring in her ears.

“Yeah.”

She barely registered the act of standing. Soul appeared to be in a similar daze, awkwardly meandering before exiting the kitchen with purposeless steps, leaving behind red stains in the carpet as if he were hoping that she would follow him. Maka wanted to say something, anything-- _come back; it’s okay; I already knew, have known for years_ ;-- but it was as if the air in the apartment had disappeared with him. She leaned on the island in an attempt to ease her shaking legs and racing thoughts. The CD continued to spin and spin for an audience that wasn’t entirely there.

Soul’s magazine was still on the kitchen island, carelessly left open on the last page that he was reading. It was unreadable, contents obscured by the mess of food that now ruined its surface. Only a single corner of a page was miraculously spared, minuscule ‘17’ peeking out from behind a thin veil of sugar.

* * *

_Soul knew something was different the moment his weapon form touched her hands, felt it in the way their souls gravitated towards each other as if they had been made to be together. Whereas before he acted as a soundboard for her wavelength, sending it back across the metaphysical barrier that separated them, now there was no distance for it to travel, no delay between their thoughts or intents, no call-and-response. They were in perfect sync in a way he had never imagined possible. Still, it wasn’t enough to beat Mosquito alone; at least,_ not until he wrangled control of his wavelength with his own spidery hands.

 _The notes he had played for Death Cannon and Shadow Star were merely accompaniments, support for ensembles that weren’t his to contribute to. But during Witch Hunter, alone on center stage with Maka and only Maka, he was able to fully lose himself in his music, in her music, in_ their _music, driven by the knowledge that whatever parts of himself slipped out would be unconditionally cherished._

_The warm feeling of her hand in his never left his flesh, even in soul space._

_He interlaced increasingly complex countermelodies into hers with fingers that galloped across monochrome, each instinctual shift in time signature and key executed with pinpoint precision. He wasn’t sure who was leading anymore, if anyone was leading at all. The steady thrumming of her wavelength only made his hands fly faster and his madness-filled heart beat faster, pushing their resonance until he was certain that he had nothing left of himself to give._

_‘More,’ each bassy pluck of her soul said. ‘More, more, more.’_

_‘More,’ the pounding of piano wire replied. ‘More, more, more.’_

_Unbeknownst to either one of them, they had passed the threshold for Witch Hunter after the very first measure._

_So engrossed in their beautiful cacophony, Soul almost didn’t catch the sound of the ocean meeting the shore enter their duet, accentuating their music with gentle cymbal-like crashes. The black blood that lapped at his ankles became warm, ebbing seafoam, foot pedals sinking into the wet sand with every further press. The velvet curtains that lined the room melted into the pinks and greens of the Northern Lights, illuminating the darkness with the candles that drifted into the air, higher and higher until they joined their brethren as stars in the sky above. As the two partners increased their rate of resonance, pieces of the Black Room continued to dissolve around him. The only things that remained untouched were the pianist and his instrument of creation, now grossly out of place against the new backdrop._

_The demon made a disgusted noise, shaking the sand off its dress shoes as the scene shifted before him. “Could this be the true power of the Anti-Demon Wavelength?” it mused to itself. “No, it’s not just that— there’s something more to it. Madness and courage meeting as one...”_

_Its golden eyes turned towards the horizon before sliding shut, listening to the words that underlined each and every note of their song. It let out a resigned sigh._

_“Oh. I get it now.”_

_The white-hot buzz of Genie Hunter’s blade erased the last remaining barrier between their two souls._

_Soul concluded their performance with a beastly cadance. There was no polite scattered applause, no audience to bow to while gasping stagnant auditorium air. There was only the reverberation of their resonance, loud and unending as if the waves had caught their final notes and playfully tossed it amongst themselves._

_“I love you,” they echoed. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”_

* * *

Maka’s eyes shot open from a dreamless sleep, senses immediately on high alert. The popcorn ceiling of her bedroom was barely visible in the late-night dusk, glow-in-the-dark stars having long lost their shine. In the distance, she could hear college students laugh and stumble home after a long night of carousing, elongated shadows creeping on her walls as they passed the lamps underneath her street. The digital clock on her work desk painted the dark figures a sickly green hue.

3:08 A.M.

Silence engulfed the apartment as the students turned the block. Maka held her breath. There must have been a reason why she was awake, and if nearly three years of fighting and bleeding and hurting had taught her anything, it was to never ignore your instincts (even if those instincts made her jump at serpent-shaped twigs; flinch at the sight of needle-tipped syringes; cover her ears at the toll of a church bell, each knell dragging her deeper and deeper into ink-soaked memories that refused to stay buried. It was for the best, she knew. Better to be safe than sorry, falsely prepared than dead).

Suddenly, she felt it. On the very periphery of her soul space, a foreign wavelength brushed the edges of her walls. Her body flinched, the boundaries of her soul reinforcing themselves instinctively at the sensation. A few beats passed before it happened again, lingering for longer and allowing her to lock onto it. There was a heavy static disrupting its frequency, briefly overwhelming her with a wave deafening panic. That was her only warning she got before it began to repeatedly collide into her walls, impacts frail but immeasurably desperate, begging and clawing for the comfort of resonance. The distortion was so thick that she almost didn’t catch the familiar hum underneath the violent layer of fear and pain.

_Soul._

She was out of bed in an instant, still-waking body stumbling on her way towards the door. As if sensing her activity, his soul doubled down on its pleas for help until she hesitantly let him in. Freezing waves of terror and desperation immediately drowned out her senses. Her shoulder slammed into the hallway walls as her vision blurred and her knees locked, heart hammering at a threat that she still couldn’t see. She gritted her teeth and inched towards the weapon’s bedroom as fast as she could, leaning on the walls to support her now trembling legs. The static grew louder with each further step.

The door to his room was already cracked open. Piles of dirty clothes littered the floor, conversing with candy and chip wrappers that crunched in protest when she stepped on them. The shark plush toy she bought him when she first learned about his nightmares laid belly-up and abandoned by his mattress. On the bed, Soul was ensnared in thin sheets, shaking and groaning like a wounded animal. Each pathetic noise sent a fresh spike of fear through their link, almost inaudible through the roaring static echoing throughout their souls. The moonlight that reflected off the sweat on his pallid face made him look translucent. His eyes were clenched shut in a mockery of sleep, his teeth bared against an invisible enemy.

She tried to shake him awake, calling his name and praying that her voice could pry him out from the nightmare. He remained locked tight in its jaws, only becoming further agitated at her prodding and shouting, as if he believed the demons in his head had physically manifested and were attacking his prone body.

The ache in her heart deepened. She was at a loss for what to do, had only ever awoken to the screams that tore from his throat, never before. It would have been so much easier if there was something to kill, a pre-kishin to protect him from, like a fairy tale knight and her sleeping beauty. But alone in his bedroom where the hell was inside his mind, the most she could do was interlace her fingers in his, close her eyes, and focus on the noise polluting his soul.

“Come back to me, Soul,” she whispered, soft as a prayer. “Please, come back.”

His hand squeezed hers in response.

Swallowing down her own anxiety, she focused on using her wavelength to counter his, sending it through their link like a paper boat on whitewater rapids. She felt the memories of their partnership mold her wavelength into something beautiful: immature races in grocery store parking lots that bruised apples and dented cans; afternoons of sifting through racks of pleather and buckles at Death City Outlet Mall; their first (and last) motorcycle lesson that ended with Soul hopping on one foot and nursing the other, swearing and howling as she apologized profusely.

She couldn’t stop the small smile that bloomed in nostalgia. The fondness of their shared memories bled into their resonance, slowly quieting the frenzy in his soul. The rise and fall of his chest became more regular, the rivers of worry that furrowed his brow smoothening out into peaceful valleys. Bits of the weapon she knew and loved began to peek out from behind the thinning static.

“That’s it,” she coaxed. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re doing so well.”

Hesitantly, she began to hum the notes to the song he played to ease his anxieties. They sounded clumsy in her throat, verses misremembered and grossly out-of-tune. Even so, the broken lullaby appeared to be having an effect, quieting and replacing the whimpers that had previously filled the room.

Scenes continued to play through her mind unbidden, becoming more vivid as they increased in intimacy. She felt the warm flush of pride that swelled in their chests when they resonated for the first time, heard the clicks of heeled footsteps on black and red tile, locked in a delicate dance of madness and sanity. She had just only begun to unlock the secrets hidden in the scent of seabreeze and stardust when the weapon finally stilled, breathing deep and even, the last of the panic melding into his soul’s normal, restless buzz.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he stirred and woke, slowly and naturally, piece by piece. Their resonance weakened as he entered consciousness until it disappeared entirely. His eyes were unfocused but present, so unlike the unseeing thousand-yard stare that she was used to after his nightmares, the one that gazed at her as if she were just another figment of his imagination waiting to disappear.

“M-Maka?” Her name was a delicate hymn on his lips.

“Welcome back, Soul,” she breathed. The skin on his forehead was cold and clammy as she brushed the hair from it.

“What are you… why aren’t you in bed?” He moved to prop himself up on his elbows, stopping short when their joined hands pulled his arm. Recognition flashed on his face, pained and pitiful.

“Of course. Another nightmare.” He untangled his fingers from hers, refusing to meet her pitying gaze as he wiped his sweaty palm on the sheets. It left a Soul-shaped imprint on the fabric, the same one that was wrapped around her knuckle. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up again.”

The guilt thickening his voice made her chest tighten. “You didn’t,” she assured.

He shook his head sadly. “You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not.”

“Really, Maka. I’m fin--”

“Soul, look at me.”

Her tone was stern but not unkind. She waited until his eyes met hers before tapping her throat with her index finger. A flash of realization lit up his expression. Bewildered, he touched his own neck with his fingertips, ghosting his still-budding Adam’s apple.

“I didn’t scream?” She nodded. “That’s impossible. Then why… how did you…” he trailed off, becoming more confused as he recollected further details of his unusual awakening.

“Your soul,” she answered for him.

“...I’m Soul?”

Maka resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “No, dummy. Your _soul_ woke me up. It was reaching out to me while I was sleeping. I think it was trying for resonance.”

She left out the fact that they _had_ resonated while he slept; he felt guilty enough without the knowledge that she had felt every ounce of his paralyzing terror, something he was adamant in continuing to suffer alone.

“I think I would’ve remembered something like that,” he said.

She shook her head. ”There’s no way you could‘ve. You were doing it without even knowing it, while you were asleep.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” he countered. “Why would it, er, _I_ do that? Why would I _want_ to wake you up when I know you sleep like shit too?”

The residual memory of Soul’s desperation ghosted her soul and made it shiver. He couldn’t see the droplets of cold sweat dribble down his cheek like tear tracks.

“I think…” she started hesitantly. “I think you were asking me to help you.”

The admission hung in the still air, heavy with unvoiced implications. He trusted her so much that his soul reached out to hers subconsciously. And here she was, steadfast and sleep-deprived, her own soul responding to his pleas with equal amounts of urgency and care. They were tethered to one another, a thought that would’ve once immobilized her with terror instead giving her a needling, selfish kind of hope. 

“Has this ever happened before?” he eventually asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I think Mama used to say something about resonating while sleeping, but that was from before Papa was caugh— while they still slept in the same bedroom.

“She told me… she told me that you’re at your most vulnerable when you’re asleep, that this was when the walls of your soul were the weakest. You can’t really control it, but it won't do anything you wouldn't do if you were awake. And it’s really, _really_ rare, but sometimes partners would reach out for one another without even realizing it. To them, resonating together is as natural as breathing, makes them feel safe or helps gets them through the night.”

“Oh.”

More subtext piled between them, thick and silencing.

Maka chewed on her words. “I’m glad it did, honestly,” she said. “You were in a really bad way when I got here.” Then, quieter, “I was really scared when I couldn’t wake you up.”

For a moment, it looked like Soul was about to lie, smirk and say something like _‘nothing I couldn’t handle’_ before dismissing her with a strained laugh. Instead, his expression softened into something impossibly vulnerable, the bags under his eyes heavier in the moon-drenched dusk.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “It was pretty nasty.” He worried his hands as he relived the memory, smiling gently at her concern. “I’m okay now, though.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. “But I promise you, Maka. I’m alright, all thanks to you. You’re kind of like my own personal guardian angel, huh?” His shy grin fell at her stunned silence, sinking into a nervous frown. “S-sorry, that was stupid. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

She opened her mouth to tell him that it was okay, that she would be his angel for as long as he needed her to be, but the flipping of her heart poisoned the words before they could leave her lips.

“You should go back to bed then,” she said, syllables strained in a facsimile of reassurance. “It’s late, and you’re tired. Stein’ll never let us hear the end of it if you fall asleep again during tomorrow’s strategy meeting.”

She turned before she could see the wounded expression on his face fully form, chest pounding with self-betrayal. A small, needling part of her expected that he would stop her, grab her wrist and nervously ask her to stay, but there was only the noise of shuffling fabric as he lay back down to rest. She didn’t need to see his face to hear the frown in his timbre.

“See you in the morning then, bookworm.” The edge in his voice was softened by the pillow on his cheek.

Ignoring the pangs of yearning from her soul, she reluctantly shuffled towards the door, freezing when her foot sunk into something plush. From his prone position on the carpet, Mr. Jaws grinned at her, mouth frozen in an eternal smile. She picked him up and dusted him off. His beady eyes twinkled with something akin to humour.

 _‘Well?’_ he seemed to ask.

She looked between the toy and his owner, unsure of what she was trying to find. Soul was hunched on his side with his face facing the wall. Cotton sheets were thrown loosely over his form, creating small hills where his shoulders were tight with tension. Maka paused; he was a sprawler, not a side sleeper, yet he shrunk into himself as if he were trying to take as little space as possible. And despite being on his own bed, he was on the edge of the mattress, nose nearly touching the band poster decorating his wall.

She almost laughed when the realization struck her. _How difficult._

It was an invitation, wordless but genuine, much like the weapon himself.

Maka pretended not to notice his muscles relaxing when the mattress springs bounced under her weight. The bed smelled faintly of detergent and sweat and Soul. It was almost too small for the both of them, the weapon having recently hit his growth spurt and her sleeping almost exclusively on her back.

Still, she gingerly placed Mr. Jaws between their two bodies, felt smile mocking her attempt at creating a barrier. Their legs were already brushing against each other, and she knew Soul would roll onto his stomach during the night, unused to remaining coiled, eventually entangling his limbs into hers. But the haze of exhaustion overwhelmed the part of herself that cared about maintaining false boundaries-- boundaries that had dissolved the moment he had silently asked her to stay— and she leaned into his warmth with surprising ease, already drifting in and out of consciousness.

“Maka?” he whispered after she had stopped moving.

“Yeah?” she responded in the same volume.

Seconds passed in silence, each tick luring her closer and closer to the embrace of sleep. She barely heard his voice through the thick layer of fog that clouded her mind.

“...nevermind.” he said. "Good night.”

“Good night, Soul.” The last thing she felt was the needling feeling of hope somewhere within her soul, as sharp and delicate as a seashell’s edge.

The scent of bacon and blueberry pancakes coaxed her into waking. There was only the faintest indention in the mattress where the boy once was, but the music that trickled through the crack underneath the door, barely audible as to not disturb her rest, revealed his location better than perception ever would have. Promises of her favorite breakfast mingled with the tawny morning sunrise, singing a silent ‘thank you’ in a language only the two of them understood. Alone on his bed, her heart swelled with love and gratitude. Maka was the one that should be thanking him; it was the best sleep she has had in a long time.

She had her opportunity a few nights later when she awoke to her hand cupped protectively in his, thumbs running along tiny ridges of scars and rubbing nervous circles into her palms. Broken, misremembered lines of poetry occupied the silence, replacing the lethal echo of church bells that still haunted the halls of her subconscious. They were the same verses that he would read to her in the infirmary room when she couldn’t herself, coarsely and unrhythmically, never quite able to grasp the internal meter of poetry.

“...‘Would they ache in…’ no, that’s still not right. ‘They would have continued to ache through years…’ or was it centuries? Shit, that’s not it either. ‘Would they still continue aching through centuries of pain? Enlightened with nerves, in contrast with…’ What was it… ‘In contrast with…’ with...”

He didn’t notice when she opened her eyes in the midnight dark, lost in Dickinson’s labyrinth of words. His hair was dyed lime by the electronic clock on her desk. By his side on the floor, Mr. Jaws winked at her from atop the pillow and blankets he had brought from his room, prepared to stay the night. Maka remained silent, mentally reciting the stanzas that sounded so heavenly falling from his clumsy lips:

_“ I wonder if when Years have piled –_

_Some Thousands – on the Harm –_

_That hurt them early – such a lapse_

_Could give them any Balm –_

_Or would they go on aching still_

_Through Centuries of Nerve –_

_Enlightened to a larger Pain –_

_In Contrast with the Love – ”_

* * *

_What a pain._

_The boy and the girl were knee-deep in the ocean again, this time throwing handfuls of water at the other before diving into the waves to hide. Infuriatingly, they were unbothered by both the cost and weight of their clothes, the boy’s suit jacket sopping heavily on his shoulders while the girl’s dress dragged behind her like sleeping black jellyfish. Their brilliant peals of laughter cut through the air, startling the sleeping seagulls on the shore into the starry sky. A gramophone was half-buried in the sand, its golden horn peeking out from within a dune. Despite the debris clogging up the mechanism, it never skipped nor ended, casting a constant stream of music into the air-- a duet, as haunting as it was beautiful._

_The little demon watched the two of them from the piano bench, elbow balanced on the lid of the piano as if it were a table, cupping its cheek with one hand and swirling a glass of bourbon in the other. It had long given up trying to disrupt their fun, tethered to the wretched instrument by some invisible chain. It sighed in disgust and dusted the sand off its silk pants, counting down the seconds until the sun peeked over the horizon and released it from its torment._

_Neither the boy nor the girl will remember this dream in the morning. It would slip from their grasp the same way it did whenever they woke up in each other’s arms, clutching the other desperately as if they could physically hold on to the fading memory. As their souls silently slid back into their respective soul spaces, the tide receded into the horizon and vanished, swallowing the seashells that had lined the shore. Sand calcified into dirty grout between black and red checkerboard tiles. The stars fell in a heavenly shower; some burnt into dust as they entered the atmosphere while others sunk gracefully towards the surface, revealing themselves to be blazing blue lanterns._

_As always, the Black Room would be restored to its former, twisted glory, eagerly anticipating the return of the Evans boy and his madness. And as always, he and the girl would wake up, never at the same time, still ignorant to the fact that it was their love that continually shielded the other from humanity’s darkness._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Little Soldiers by The Crane Wives. A playlist for all the songs referenced in the titles and notes, as well as songs that helped me develop narratives and characterization (mostly chapters 4-6), can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Pvo5ZcvxReP2trRDHEdsl)
> 
>  **In regards to the final (FINAL) update:** I will be aiming for finishing/posting within the next two/three months, but I’m really sorry to say that it’s very likely it will be longer than that. I started this fic when my schedule was light, but never anticipated it to get this big in scale and am now swamped in other responsibilities and deadlines (believe it or not, this was supposed to be a one/two shot… ahaha). Regardless of how long the hiatus might be, please rest assured knowing that I would never leave this fic unfinished! Thank you always for your patience thus far!
> 
> I actually know next to nothing about astrology aside from the fact that my mom read her own horoscope religiously when I was growing up. I really miss those little scrolls they used to sell at the gas station check out, you know the ones? Special thanks to Cas for unknowingly helping with the horoscope bits.
> 
> The poem referenced in the penultimate scene is "I measure every Grief I meet" by Emily Dickenson.
> 
> MUSIC HCS:  
> The Rosnes and Charlap piano duet “Never Will I Marry” (and the rest of Double Portrait) always brings out the romantic in me, and is what Soul plays in the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated. Feel free to share your own headcanons or music thoughts in the comments-- I love hearing new things!


End file.
